The highly visible Star Wars missile defense program introduced in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, which apparently died with the end of the Reagan administration, has in fact lived on quietly for many years. The original Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) mutated into an office called Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO). Recently, national missile defense (NMD) has received press coverage with several system failures and President Clinton's decision to defer any implementation to the next administration. The National Research Council has had a committee (on which I serve) studying issues in area missile defense (AMD) and theater missile defense (TMD) for the last seven months. The final report is not yet out, but there are many interesting issues. Indeed, many of the systems involved in AMD and TMD could easily migrate to a NMD program. I will outline some of the technical and political issues associated with missile defense, some of which even involve work that has a statistical character.