Category Archives: Deterrence

Stopping the Unstoppable—How will the U.S. Defeat Missiles of the Future?

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(Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in RealClearDefense) Earlier this year, former U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert asserted that current ballistic missile defense technology would “reac[h] the asymptote of our limits” within “about ten years.” This fact stands in stark contrast to another cold reality: the offensive ballistic missile capabilities of U.S. …

“Lower End” Missile Threats: The Case of Yemen

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The role of missile warfare in the ongoing fighting in Yemen is easy to overlook in the context of the ISIL threat to peace, the presence of al-Qaeda and ISIL militants in Yemen, the humanitarian crisis in this Arabian Peninsula conflict, and “high end” missile threats. Detailed analysis of the role of missiles in the conflict over Yemen yields findings and implications regarding “lower end” conflict scenarios involving long-range rocket, and conventional ballistic or anti-ship cruise missile use by irregular, hybrid, or state adversaries.

Hacking missile defence: the cyber challenge to BMD

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In the past two decades, the US ballistic missile defence programme has tackled and overcome myriad technical challenges, engineering problems and political skeptics, and the notion and role of missile defence has now become normalized, accepted and essentially entrenched within US strategic and deterrence planning. Indeed, we have come a long way since the highly …

Hermit Kingdom Hypnosis

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We must not let North Korea’s repetitive behavior erode our vigilance.   Earlier this month, North Korea tested a new anti-ship missile and launched five short-ranged ballistic missiles in to the Sea of Japan. Characteristically, these launches were preceded by North Korean threats via its Central News Agency. After claiming to have miniaturized nuclear warhead …