Missile Defense Project

Authoritative analysis on missile defense and related issues

The Missile Defense Project at CSIS looks at a wide range of policy, program, and strategic issues related to missile defense. Technological and geopolitical factors have driven increased global supply and demand for high-velocity, unmanned, missile-based weapons and their corresponding counters. Besides more recognized cruise and ballistic missile threats, global missile proliferation now consists of a spectrum including precision-guided rockets, anti-ship missiles, air defenses, hypersonic delivery systems, and counterspace weapons.  

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Learn more about the Missile Defense Project and the network of experts, staff, and non-resident affiliates who contribute to our analysis.

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Photo: Airman 1st Class Jack Rodriguez

Photo: Airman 1st Class Jack Rodriguez

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A public discussion series with Heather Williams, Tom Karako, and Kari Bingen offering real-time context and commentary on national security developments and strategic forces issues

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Photo: CSIS Missile Defense Project

Photo: CSIS Missile Defense Project

Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense

Affordable mass has become the watchword of defense modernization, be it swarms of drones or satellite constellations. What could such an approach mean for air and missile defense? Networks of passive, proliferated sensors could make one meaningful contribution. 

Report by Masao Dahlgren, Patrycja Bazylczyk, and Tom Karako — July 21, 2025

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Photo: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Derek Hamilton/Released

Photo: U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Derek Hamilton/Released

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The Strategic Landpower Dialogue is a quarterly event series featuring senior Army officers and leaders to discuss critical landpower issues

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Missile Threat

Missile Threat brings together a wide range of information and analysis relating to the proliferation of cruise and ballistic missiles around the world and the air and missile defense systems designed to defeat them.

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A Space Sensor Layer for Missile Defense

Space is the place for a variety of missile defense tasks — including launch detection, tracking, discrimination, intercept, and kill assessment. Ballistic missiles travel in space, and the missile defense task is by definition largely a challenge in and through the space domain. For all but very short range missiles, a considerable part of the…

Commentary — August 17, 2016

Stop Eating the Seed Corn – The Growing Squeeze on Missile Defense R&D

Over the past fifteen years, missile defense has gone from an idea largely restricted by treaty, to a kind of infancy with initial defensive capability, to what now might be termed a kind of adolescence. Along the way, the combination of several trends has put the Missile Defense Agency budget under increasing but underappreciated strain. Created…

Commentary — August 15, 2016

MDA and the Color of Money

This study explores the growing competition for scarce dollars at the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA). It traces the authorities, roles, and missions assigned to the agency and the growing trend of using what was originally intended to be a research and development budget for procurement and sustainment of missile defense assets. As adversary missile…

Report — August 12, 2016

Missile Defense Budget Trends

Explore high resolution graphs analyzing decades of U.S. missile defense budget trends featured in the CSIS report The Missile Defense Agency and the Color of Money: Fewer Resources, More Responsibilities, and a Growing Budget Squeeze. Click on the graphs to access the full resolution image.   

Commentary — August 2, 2016

The Missile Defense Agency and the Color of Money

The CSIS Missile Defense Project cordially invites you to the launch of the report The Missile Defense Agency and the Color of Money: Fewer Resources, More Responsibilities, and a Growing Budget Squeeze.

Event — July 29, 2016

The Dirty Secret of US-Israel Missile Defense Cooperation

We need a way to fund Israel’s missile defenses without undercutting our own. This weekend, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council will visit Washington, reportedly to conclude a new multi-year aid package. Replacing an arrangement set to expire in 2018, the deal is expected to include hundreds of millions of dollars for Israeli…

Commentary — July 28, 2016

Thinking about the Unthinkable in a Highly Proliferated World

For decades, the United States has led the effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons, both among potential adversaries and among its allies and partners. The current state of deterrence and of the nonproliferation regime, however, is open to many doubts…

Report — July 15, 2016