National Missile Defense: A New Mission for the Total Force

摘要

This paper explores the concept of a future National Missile Defense (NMD) Systemdeployed, integrated, and manned by the National Guard. It first looks at the current status of the NMD discussion within the context of an emerging threat to North America by other than Russian or former Soviet Union States. Framed by that foundation, the paper reviews an historical case study concerning the contribution of the National Guard in the performance of a similar national defense mission, compared to a proposed concept of operations for NMD. The focus of this comparison is on the success of past performance with an expectation of future capability for this critical mission. The paper concludes with an organizational development analysis of this emerging mission and what key attributes should characterize a weapon system which represents a significant investment of our national treasury directly under the operational control of the reserve component.