Overview:
What is Missile Defense?
Ballistic Missile Defense Narrative
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
 nyone
who says there is no threat to the United States
from ballistic missiles isn’t following the
news.
The threat, which once came from the former Soviet
Union, has spread and the Department of Defense
has a duty to protect the citizens of the United
States from this growing problem.
Missile defense is not a new idea. The British tried
to devise a defense against Hitler’s V-2 rockets
during the waning days of World War II. In the 1960s,
the United States devised a system to protect population
centers from ballistic missiles. The Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty of 1972 between the United States
and the Soviet Union forbade either party from working
on a continent-wide missile defense program. In
the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan proposed the
Strategic Defense Initiative. He envisioned a high-tech,
impenetrable ballistic missile shield for the United
States.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Strategic
Defense Initiative morphed into the Ballistic Missile
Defense Organization and that organization is on
the point for allresearch and development for missile
defense programs. Along the way, the extent of missile
defense changed. From Reagan’s impenetrable
shield, missile defense today offers more realistic
defense against a handful of missiles. Russia still
has thousands of ICBMs. The Russians would easily
overwhelm any U.S. missile defense system.
The danger now comes from rogue states. There are
12 nations with nuclear weapons programs. Twenty-eight
nations have ballistic missiles. Nations developing
ballistic missiles include Iraq, Libya, North Korea,
Pakistan, India, Iran and Syria.
When the United States faced the Soviet Union, there
were rational men in the Kremlin that understood
the power of these weapons and would not make hasty
decisions. For the first time in history, political
leaders with no political structure around them
or free press to temper a decision to launch will
soon possess nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons
and the means to deliver them. The mere possession
of these weapons is a threat to the population of
the United States, American national interests around
the world, U.S. friends and allies and U.S. deployed
forces.
The future of missile defense lies with the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization. The organization is
testing boost-phase defenses, mid-course defenses
and terminal-phase defenses. Serious research and
development is exploring all aspects of missile
defense in a way that had not been done before.
The Clinton administration did not examine many
technologies for fear of violating the ABM Treaty.
The Bush administration has concluded that the threat
is serious, and the only way to proceed is to be
truthful about our desire to move beyond the treaty
and construct a broader framework of deterrence
for the 21st century. 
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