Technical Obstacles and Limitations to the Implementation of Effective Mid- course Ground-based Missile Defense

摘要

The initial deployment of the United States ballistic missile defense system is currently under way. The system that is being deployed uses ground-based interceptors to intercept ballistic missiles in mid-course. While the system is nominally "online", serious technical obstacles remain before the missile defense system could be considered to have any significant probability of intercepting an incoming ballistic missile. Even if the technical hurdles are overcome, the fundamental design of the ground-based, mid-course system has severe limitations that prevent it from successfully intercepting a nuclear attack against the United States.