How US strategic antimissile defense could be made to work
From Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Contrary to a new nuclear strategy adopted by the US government in April 2010, that relies on assumptions that the current missile defense systems will reliably protect the continental United States in the extreme circumstances of nuclear-armed combat, now research presented in this study shows that these defenses have not been tested against real-world threats and would not be effective in real combat conditions.
The Ground-Based Missile Defense system (GND) is currently protecting the continental United States from long-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that might be launched in the future from countries such as Iran and North Korea. Making matters worse, the authors write, are the recent Iranian ballistic missile tests that indicate Iran is developing effective countermeasures that would defeat these US missile defenses. The authors conclude that the new US nuclear strategy is based on an alarming “technical myth” that the systems are proven and effective.
