Masao Dahlgren

I'm a fellow at CSIS. I often write about space, missile defense, and defense acquisition, especially when it involves modeling and simulation. I also publish on startups and conventional deterrence. In my spare time, I like collecting rare books, CAD, shooting film, and cooking with friends. You can reach me at the following:
Twitter | LinkedIn | Email | GitHub | Substack

Here's a partial list of my writing, speaking, and media appearances:

Writing

• CSIS, "Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense" (report, 2025)
• CSIS, "Weather Research and Missile Defense: Save for a Rainy Day" (commentary, 2025)
• CSIS, "Ukraine's Drone Swarms Are Destroying Russian Nuclear Bombers. What Happens Now?" (explainer, 2025)
• TIPP, "Closing the Hypersonic Testing Loop" (essay, 2025)
• Substack, "Now We're Talking: Notes on McLuhan, Ong, and Oral Culture" (personal essay, 2025)
• CSIS, "Defense Priorities in the Open-Source AI Debate" (report, 2024)
• Breaking Defense, "Avoiding Rashomon with defense venture funding: DoD, VCs need to tell same story" (op-ed, 2024)
• Breaking Defense, "The Pentagon's next satellite launch is a test for missile defense's future" (op-ed, 2024)
• CSIS, "Getting on Track: Evaluating Space and Airborne Missile Sensing Architectures" (report, 2023)
• Defense News, "How Advanced Technology is Changing Deterrence" (op-ed, 2022)
• CSIS, "Boost-Phase Missile Defense: Interrogating the Assumptions" (report, 2022)
• CSIS, "Complex Air Defense: Countering the Hypersonic Missile Threat" (report, 2022)
• CSIS, "Strategy in the Next Missile Age" (report for DoD Office of Net Assessment [2-part], 2020, 2021)
• CSIS, "More than Missiles: China Previews its New Way of War" (report, 2019)

Speaking

• AIAA ASCEND, "Key Technology Challenges to Deliver Integrated Air & Missile Defense," panel (Mike Drews, Steve Medeiros, Rob Antypas), July 2025
• CSIS, "Report Rollout: Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense," livestream (Tom Karako), July 2025
• Defense One Tech Summit, "Golden Dome/Hypersonics and Missile Defense," panel (Mark Piper, Doug Loverro, Patrick Tucker), June 2025
• Georgetown University SSP, "Hypersonic Weapons: Implications for Airpower," guest lecture, April 2025
• CSIS, "AI Diffusion and Defense Production," panel (Divyansh Kaushik, Keegan McBride, Glenn Parham), April 2025
• SpaceNews, "Tracking Hypersonic Missiles," webinar (Reggie Brothers, Chad Fish, David Ariosto), March 2025
• NNSA Office of Stockpile Production and Integration, "Missile Tracking Policy and Design Choices," presentation, July 2024
• Hypersonic Innovation Symposium, "Advancing Multi Orbital Sensing for Hypersonic Missile Defense," panel (Alexander Rasmussen, Gary Goff, Michael McNabb, Kari Bingen), May 2024
• 3rd National Summit on Hypersonic Weapons Systems, "Hypersonic Ground Test Capabilities at Purdue University: From Low Disturbance to High Enthalpy," panel (Brandon Chynoweth, Joseph Jewell), April 2024
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, "Department of Defense Space Sensor Modernization," lecture, March 2024
• Payload x SXSW, "The Ultimate High Ground: The Role of Space in National Security," panel (Jason Kim, Heather Bogstie, Jack Kuhr), March 2024
• CSIS, "Getting on Track: Space and Airborne Sensors for Hypersonic Missile Defense," panel (John Hill, Alexander Rasmussen, Richard Ritter, Ryan Tully, Tom Karako), December 2023
• Georgetown University SSP, "Complex Air Defense: Countering the Hypersonic Missile Threat," guest lecture, November 2023
• Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Seminar, "Data is All You Need: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and the Missile Defense Enterprise," presentation, October 2023
• 2nd National Summit on Hypersonic Weapons Systems, panel discussion, April 2023
• George Mason University, guest lecture (Michael Hunzeker, Eric Gomez), October 2022
• DSI Directed Energy Technology Symposium, presentation, October 2022
• CSIS, "Boost-phase Missile Defense: Interrogating the Assumptions," panel (Ian Williams, Trey Obering, Dean Wilkening), June 2022

Media

• Air and Space Forces, "Air Force Seeks Fivefold Funding Hike for Mobile Base Defense Tech" August 22, 2025
• KSEE, "Hypersonic is key to national security, say California lawmakers," July 24, 2025
• Breaking Defense, "Passive ground-based sensor networks could bolster air, missile defense resilience: CSIS," July 21, 2025
• Tectonic, "CSIS Wants Air Defense to Get Passive-Aggressive," July 21, 2025
• CNN, "Israel has pushed the US to use its 'bunker buster' bomb on Iran. Here's what the weapon can do," June 18, 2025
• AFP/The Times of India, "Use of US bunker buster bomb looms over Iran conflict," June 18, 2025
• Spectrum News, "Ukrainian Drones Target Russia's Nuclear-Capable Bombers," June 4, 2025
• Task and Purpose, "No 'silver bullet' against a drone attack like Operation Spider's Web," June 3, 2025
• The New York Sun, "Trump's Golden Dome Plan Draws Out Cold War-Era Critics of Reagan's 'Star Wars,' Along With Domestic Foes," May 27, 2025
• The Atlantic, "Elon Musk's Most Alarming Power Grab," May 6, 2025
• Financial Times, "Starlink's rapid global rollout complicated by Elon Musk's ties to Donald Trump," March 23, 2025
• WJR, "Behind Trump's Iron Dome Demands," February 20, 2025
• Axios, "What Trump's Iron Dome demands," February 19, 2025
• The Times, "Trump proposes US 'Iron Dome' to thwart Putin's threats," January 31, 2025
• Tectonic Defense, "Star Wars," January 30, 2025
• The Washington Examiner, "Trump's 'Iron Dome for America' executive order calls for much more than Israeli version," January 28, 2025
• Inside AI Policy, "CSIS analysts offer positive takes on export-controls rule, note room for improvement," January 16, 2025
• Axios, "Northrop gets green light for hypersonic interceptor," October 2, 2024
• Axios, "U.S. and Japan buddy up on Patriot missile production," August 21, 2024
• The Economist, "Can Donald Trump's Iron Dome plan keep America safe?" August 11, 2024
• WBUR, "The rise of laser warfare," June 7, 2024
• The Washington Post, "Russia uses similar drones to exhaust Ukrainian infrastructure," April 14, 2024
• Stars and Stripes, "Missile-finding Space Force unit in Qatar 'almost certain' to have saved lives," March 29, 2024
• Business Insider, "North Korean missiles won't defeat Ukraine," January 29, 2024
• The Wall Street Journal, "How the U.S. Military Uses Satellites to Detect Enemy Missiles," January 28, 2024
• DefenseScoop, "Report: Multi-orbit sensing architectures optimal for hypersonic missile defense," December 18, 2023
• C-SPAN, "Defense Department Officials Discuss Hypersonic Missiles," December 17, 2023
• CNBC, "Why The Pentagon Is Spending Billions To Bring Laser Weapons To The Battlefield," November 15, 2023
• Sky News, "Israel-Hamas War," October 18, 2023
• POLITICO, "The problem with 'hypersonic' and Russia's attack claim," March 21, 2022
• Foreign Policy, "The Pentagon Wants to Ruin China's 'Sputnik Moment'," February 7, 2022
• Forces News, "Should we believe North Korea's hypersonic missile claims?" January 14, 2022
• Inkstick Media, "Food for Thought: Missiles," February 11, 2020