Ballistic Missile Defense: Reflections on Current Issues

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Abstract
Renewed interest in ballistic missile defense (BMD) must be seen against the background of technical, strategic, and political uncertainties. Technically a shift in emphasis from traditional to exotic technologies involves many uncertainties. While these may be resolved in the future, any such system will have to be extremely leakproof to offer an attractive defense of cities. Strategically BMD can have destabilizing consequences if not coupled with severe constraints on offensive forces; in particular, unbridled BMD competition could provide incentives for either superpower to strike the other first in a crisis. Politically the most salient consideration is the ABM Treaty of 1972; any move by the United States that seems to call its commitment to the treaty into question will raise political opposition domestically and among U.S. allies, and suspicions in the USSR. Future prospects may be enhanced if the United States makes clear that it has no intention of revising the treaty; moves ahead with offensive arms limitations; and reorients its BMD focus to the marginal role of defending retaliatory forces that remain after a period of offensive arms limitations.

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