The Missile Defense Review: Insufficient for Complex and Integrated Attack

The 2018 National Defense Strategy calls renewed strategic competition with major powers the central challenge of our time. The 2019 Missile Defense Review (MDR) represents the Trump administrations attempt to adapt US missile defense policy, posture, and programs to this challenge. Upon the documents public release in January 2019, President Trump stated that it marked "a new era" for missile defense. Unfortunately, actions within the review fall short of meeting both current and emerging threats, particularly with respect to layering and integration. Much remains to be done before that new era of missile defense can begin. By contrast, the US has for a quarter century been pushing active defenses against longer missiles apart from any explicit connection to Russia and China. Despite a few caveats in the 2010 Ballistic MDR and some programs to defend against antiship missiles, the focus across the Bush and Obama administrations was on limited ballistic missile threats from rogue states.