EMERGING MISSILE CHALLENGES AND 

IMPROVING ACTIVE DEFENSES 

by 

Jeffrey A. Larsen 

Kerry M. Kartchner 

The Counterproliferation Papers 

Future Warfare Series No. 25 

USAF Counterproliferation Center

Air University 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses 

Jeffrey A. Larsen 

Kerry M. Kartchner 

August 2004 

The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the USAF 

Counterproliferation Center to provide information and analysis to assist 

the understanding of the U.S. national security policy-makers and USAF 

officers to help them better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of 

mass destruction. Copies of No. 25 and previous papers in this series are 

available from the USAF Counterproliferation Center, 325 Chennault 

Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427. The fax number is (334) 953-

7530; phone (334) 953-7538. 

Counterproliferation Paper No. 25 

USAF Counterproliferation Center

Air University 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6427

The internet address for the USAF Counterproliferation Center is: 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm 

Contents 

Page 

Disclaimer................................................................................................... ii 

The Authors ............................................................................................... iii 

I. The Rationale for Missile Defense..........................................................1 

II. Background: Early Efforts at Missile Defense .....................................3 

III. The Current Threat ...............................................................................8 

IV. The Rumsfeld Commission Report ....................................................11 

V. The North Korean Missile Test ...........................................................14 

VI. U.S. Efforts Since 1993......................................................................16 

VII. Missile Defense and the Bush Administration..................................23 

XI. The Bush Plan for Missile Defense....................................................29 

XII. The Way Ahead.................................................................................31 

XIII. Conclusion .......................................................................................32 

Notes..........................................................................................................37 
Disclaimer 

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do 

not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Government, 

Department of Defense, or the USAF Counterproliferation Center. 

ii
The Authors 

Dr. Jeffrey A. Larsen is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Strategies

Business Unit of Science Applications International Corporation in 

Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is also president of Larsen Consulting 

Group LLC and an adjunct professor of international studies at the 

University of Denver. Dr. Larsen is a retired Air Force Lieutenant

Colonel who served as a command pilot, associate professor of political 

science at the Air Force Academy, and first director of the USAF Institute 

for National Security Studies, where he also designed the Academy’s first 

interdisciplinary course in countering the proliferation of WMD. A native 

of Wisconsin, Dr. Larsen holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton 

University, an M.A. in international relations from Princeton, an M.A. in

national security affairs and European area studies from the Naval

Postgraduate School, and a B.S. in international affairs and Soviet area 

studies from the U.S. Air Force Academy. From 1995-1997 he held a 

Fulbright NATO Research Fellowship, and in 2001 he won SAIC’s

publication prize in the field of political science, economics, and arms

control. Dr. Larsen has served as senior editor of the official Air Force

studies of the air campaigns in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He wrote 

U.S. Space Command’s strategy for the region of space, led the team that 

developed a strategic vision for U.S. Northern Command, and has 

supported Air Force Headquarters in arms control policy issues, the

Nuclear Posture Review, and the development of Air Force 

counterproliferation doctrine. He has served as a consultant to the U.S. 

Navy, the U.S. Air Force, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

Dr. Kerry M. Kartchner is Senior Advisor for Missile Defense 

Policy in the Bureau of Arms Control, U.S. Department of State. He was 

previously the Senior Representative of the Department of State to the 

Standing Consultative Commission for the ABM Treaty, and prior to that, 

the Senior Representative of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament 

iii
Agency to the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission for the 

START Treaty. He has also been an Assistant Professor of National 

Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Area Leader for 

Arms Control Research at Analytic Services, an Arlington, Virginia think 

tank. He is the author of Negotiating START: The Quest for Strategic

Stability (1992), as well as other chapters and edited volumes. He earned 

his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California. 

iv
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 1

Emerging Missile Challenges and 

Improving Active Defenses 

Jeffrey A. Larsen 

Kerry M. Kartchner 

I. The Rationale for Missile Defense 

The 1993 Counterproliferation Initiative (CPI) was an implicit 

recognition by the U.S. government that despite the best efforts of the 

international community in nonproliferation and arms control, some

weapons of mass destruction and the means for their delivery were going 

to fall into the hands of the world’s bad actors. Since that was likely to 

happen, it was only prudent to prepare. 

The CPI specifically called upon the U.S. military to include planning

for active and passive defenses in its spectrum of defense responsibilities. 

Its focus was primarily on tactical concerns, as defenses in the theater 

would “neutralize or mitigate the effects of WMD [weapons of mass 

destruction] and enable U.S. forces to fight effectively even on a 

contaminated battlefield.”

1

 In this context, it was envisioned that tactical

and strategic ballistic missile defenses would play an integral role in 

protection of our deployed forces, our allies, and the American homeland. 

In the realm of strategic ballistic missile defense of North America, 

however, the need is not so clear-cut, nor is there a consensus regarding

deployment. The need for a new defensive concept was articulated by

President Ronald Reagan and caught the public’s attention in 1983 and in 

the years immediately thereafter. In the early 1990s a somewhat fragile 

consensus was formed, including both Republicans and Democrats, that a

limited national missile defense system was needed, particularly after 

North Korea began testing its No Dong and Taepo Dong missiles and it 

became evident that Kim Jong Il’s government was selling this technology 

to other states like Iran and Pakistan. 

This missile defense system was simultaneously praised by

proponents as deliverance from assured destruction, and reviled by 

opponents as too expensive, too destabilizing, and too technologically 
2 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

challenging. This debate was finally settled by the George W. Bush

Administration that withdrew the United States from the ABM Treaty in

2002 and deployed the first operational system in late 2004. 

Some missile defense proponents rejected the idea that a world of 

mutual assured destruction (MAD) is somehow safer, that we should 

simply accept that the bomb is the ultimate weapon for which there is no 

defense. Rather, they believe that this reflects an immoral abrogation of a

government’s fundamental purpose: the protection of its citizens. The 

shift to a defense-dominant relationship between major powers is possible 

and must be pursued, according to this perspective. 

Opponents have developed a standard set of criticisms that they roll 

out each time a new missile defense system is proposed: it won’t work; it 

will cost too much; it will upset strategic stability by changing the 

accepted rules of international behavior; it could easily be overcome by 

offensive weapons and countermeasures, hence leading to an arms race; 

and (prior to 2002), it would violate the spirit of the Anti-Ballistic Missile 

(ABM) Treaty, thereby undercutting the cornerstone of arms control. Such

beliefs, in fact, led the United States and the USSR to sign the ABM

Treaty in 1972. This treaty and its restrictions on strategic defenses 

legitimized a world without defenses, one in which societal vulnerability 

was seen as the best way to ensure that logic prevailed between the two 

superpowers. If neither side could win a nuclear exchange, it was argued,

no rational actor would ever start a war. 

Tactical or theater missile defenses have been regularly highlighted in 

the annual Counterproliferation Program Review Committee reports, in 

which the regional Combatant Commanders prioritized their requirements 

in a list of Areas for Capabilities Enhancements (ACE). In every ACE list 

made public during the late 1990s, an active missile defense capability 

was ranked in the top five priorities. It was called different things each

year: “active defense” (ranked 2nd) in 1995; “interception of cruise

missiles” (2nd) in 1996; “theater ballistic missile active defense” (4th) in 

1997, and “theater missile defense with minimum collateral effects” (5th)

in another part of the 1997 report.2

The world has changed in the last few years; enough, in fact, to allow 

the deployment of a limited missile defense that is not strategically 

significant, and therefore non-provocative to Russia. This will provide

some modest defense against rogue states in a world where ballistic missile 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 3

technology is proliferating to multiple countries, some of which may be 

undeterrable in the classic sense, and many of whom do not like America.

The Bush administration is following in the footsteps of its predecessor, 

William Clinton’s administration, by proposing a modest, limited missile 

defense system that includes both national and theater missile defense 

elements. The ABM Treaty is no longer an issue or impediment, and there 

was little international reaction to U.S. withdrawal from the treaty or its 

plans to deploy a limited system, given the reduced international level of 

tension between the United States and Russia. In addition, the world 

recognizes an acknowledged threat from rogue states like North Korea, and 

the likelihood of further multinational expeditionary military actions in farflung corners of the world. Given this, and with defensive technology 

getting better, even some former opponents now say that missile defenses

have finally reached the point where they make sense.3

II. Background: Early Efforts at Missile Defense4

After World War II and before the invention of the intercontinental 

ballistic missile (ICBM), the United States initially focused its air defense

efforts against manned bombers. It investigated some early concepts for 

anti-missile and anti-satellite defensive systems, but these didn’t really 

catch the public eye until 1957, when the Soviet Union tested an ICBM 

and launched Sputnik. Suddenly the country felt vulnerable to an 

adversary who could threaten America’s heartland from above. 

Furthermore, the Soviets began to deploy their own Galosh ABM system 

around Moscow in the early 1960s. Clearly, something had to be done. 

Over the past five decades, the United States has been developing missile 

defense programs (see Figure 1) to meet this evolving threat. 

Figure 1. Major U.S. Missile Defense Programs Since World War II 

Decade Program Name Goal Threat Key Elements

1960s Sentinel “Thin” national 

protection China Spartan, Sprint missiles 

1970s Safeguard Point protection of 

offensive forces USSR Spartan, Sprint missiles 
4 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

1980s Strategic Defense 

Initiative (SDI) 

National or global 

protection USSR 

Exotic defenses, 

including spacebased, plus 

missiles 

1990s 

Global Protection 

Against Limited

Strikes (GPALS) 

Global and theater 

protection 

Russia (limited 

strikes), Rogue 

States

Ground and spacebased missiles 

1990s 

Theater Missile 

Defense and 

National Missile

Defense 

Theater first; 

national secondary Rogue States Ground and seabased missiles 

2000s Missile Defense National and

theater 

Adversary State,

accidental

launch 

Ground & seabased missiles, 

airborne laser 

Missile Defense Programs, 1957-1993 

Nike Zeus. The first effort at developing an anti-ballistic missile 

missile used a spin-off of the Nike Hercules intermediate-range ballistic 

missile system. Nike Zeus proved itself capable of downing a satellite 

with a nuclear warhead. It was successfully tested in the late 1950s but 

had many technical difficulties. 

Nike X. The successor to Nike Zeus, Nike X, was an Army program

in the early 1960s. This research and development effort witnessed many 

advances and proposed a two-tier layered defense system to defend the

country. Nike X became the Spartan missile, and the program was rolled 

into the first true national missile defense effort, the Sentinel program. 

Sentinel. President Lyndon Johnson made a decision in 1967 to 

deploy a thin national defensive system against a Chinese threat.

Originally, proponents of Sentinel called for a robust missile defense 

network that could thwart the Soviet offensive missile threat. But 

recognition that it would be near-impossible to create a perfect defense 

against a large Soviet threat, and the Soviet unwillingness to negotiate

away their strategic defenses at the June 1967 Glassboro (New Jersey) 

Summit, convinced Johnson to pressure Congress into approving 

deployment of Sentinel. 

The Sentinel plan called for placing several hundred Spartan and Sprint

missiles at 14 locations across the United States, including 10 major cities.

This, in turn, led to public concern about nuclear warheads exploding 

overhead, or the possibility that merely deploying defenses could provoke a
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 5

Soviet first strike attack to take out the system (making these sites “megaton

magnets”). Sentinel was thus a compromise program between demands in 

some quarters for a system that would provide limited protection, and those 

who argued it was a mistake to deploy any defensive system, using the 

standard arguments described above. Its public rationale was, in part, to

provide a defense against the emerging Chinese long-range ballistic missile 

threat, while avoiding an action-reaction phenomenon in U.S.-Soviet 

relations that could lead to an arms race.5

Safeguard. President Richard Nixon changed the name for his 

smaller version of Sentinel. This was a system that no longer attempted to

be nationwide and moved the ABM sites away from cities in order to

protect U.S. second-strike forces at bomber bases and ICBM missile 

fields. Safeguard was originally envisioned to be based at six to twelve 

sites. Two of those actually began constructing their silos for the 

interceptor missiles: Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota, and Malmstrom 

AFB, Montana. Safeguard would employ only a few hundred Spartan and 

Sprint missiles, using the same two-layered approach as was planned for 

Sentinel. The 1972 ABM Treaty limited each side to two sites (the United 

States chose to defend the ICBM fields at Grand Forks and the national 

capital of Washington). The 1974 Protocol to the ABM Treaty further 

limited each side to one site. Grand Forks was the only location to 

become operational. On October 1, 1975, the Safeguard site began 

operations, the only such capability the United States had fielded until 

2004. The next day, Congress cut its funding, questioning the value of a 

single site in the north central Midwest. It closed in February 1976. 

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). In March 1983, President 

Ronald Reagan called upon American scientists to undertake what has

since become the nation’s largest and most expensive weapons system

program. In a visionary speech, Reagan asked the United States to build a

defensive system that would make nuclear weapons “impotent and 

obsolete.” As he put it, 

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that 

their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. 

retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept 

and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached

our own soil or that of our allies?6
6 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

Reagan created the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) 

in 1984 to lead the effort. Initially SDIO focused most of its research on 

exotic weapons, including directed energy weapons and space-based

systems. The arguments for and against SDI were virtual repeats of those 

heard during the Sentinel and Safeguard debates of the previous two 

decades. Nonetheless, the magnitude of the effort scared the Soviet 

Union, which tried desperately to eliminate this latest U.S. threat to MAD 

stability. The Soviet concern was evidenced by its willingness to trade 

away its strategic offensive forces at the arms control negotiating table in 

return for constraints on SDI. (This was most obvious in Soviet Secretary 

General Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposal at the Reykjavik Summit in 

October 1986.)7

 The program became less grandiose after a couple of years 

of research showed that space-based systems had a long way to go before 

they would be mature, deployable weapons. In 1985, Paul Nitze, a senior

State Department arms control adviser, had provided a formula for 

deployment that included three criteria. These were similar to the four-part 

approach that the Clinton administration would take ten years later. In order 

to be considered, according to Nitze, ballistic missile defenses had to be 

effective, survivable, and cost effective at the margins (in order to prevent

the other side from simply deploying more offensive forces).

8

Theater Missile Defenses (TMD). President George H.W. Bush 

sponsored a review of the SDI program from 1989 to 1990 led by 

Ambassador Henry Cooper. While Cooper remained an advocate of a 

national missile defense program that included a space-based system 

involving thousands of small satellites called Brilliant Pebbles, the 

findings of his study called on the United States to shift its defense

research emphasis from strategic defenses over North America, to the 

protection of deployed forces and allies against limited attacks.9

 The

Coalition’s experience with Iraqi Scuds in Desert Storm in 1991 certainly 

influenced this recommendation. These suggestions to focus on theater 

defenses became policy. 

Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS). President Bush 

changed the strategic defense program dramatically in 1991. Given the 

supposed success of Patriot ABM batteries in the first Gulf War, Bush

reinvigorated the ballistic missile defense program. The new program, 

while robust, was smaller than SDI. GPALS was composed of three main 

parts: a ground-based national missile defense comprised of 750 missile 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 7

interceptors at six sites, a ground-based theater missile defense, and a 

space-based global defense (using Brilliant Pebbles). The Missile Defense 

Act of 1991 (discussed below) lent badly needed Congressional support to 

the revised program. 

Accidental Launch Protection System (ALPS). Senator Sam Nunn 

(D-GA) suggested a compromise approach that would provide an 

alternative to GPALS with a smaller and more affordable system, one that 

would be able to defend against an accidental launch of a few missiles or a

small attack by a rogue commander. ALPS would require improved 

theater missile defenses and modest adjustments to the ABM Treaty that 

would allow the deployment of limited national missile defenses to 

counter accidental launches and limited strikes. While this was a system 

offered as a compromise and was never officially blessed, it is of interest 

today because it reflects much of the current system deployed in 2004.

Programs Since 1993 

The Counterproliferation Initiative was released in 1993. That same

year, the Bottom-Up Review of U.S. security policy and the Defense 

Department was published. This study laid out a three-part missile 

defense program, which gave top priority to theater missile defense 

(TMD) efforts. Its key elements included the Patriot anti-aircraft missile 

and its upgrades, the Army’s Theater High Altitude Air Defense 

(THAAD) missile, and the Navy’s Aegis Area Defense program. 

When the Clinton administration arrived in Washington, Secretary of 

Defense Les Aspin renamed SDIO the Ballistic Missile Defense 

Organization (BMDO) to reflect this new emphasis on TMD. To many, 

this signaled the end of the SDI decade—though even Aspin gave SDI 

credit for helping win the Cold War. As discussed later, in its second term 

the Clinton administration agreed to pursue a national missile defense 

system, and George W. Bush came into office in 2001 convinced of the 

need to push such a system forward to actual deployment. 

Before reviewing the events and systems of the past decade, however, 

we need to examine the post-Cold War threat to the United States that has 

driven concern over the need for theater and ballistic missile defenses. 
8 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

III. The Current Threat 

In addition to the obvious desire to protect one’s homeland from the 

ravages of missile attack, many analysts today believe that theater missile

defenses are a necessary component of any expeditionary military 

operation. The growing number of countries that possess short or

intermediate-range missiles makes it crucial to have TMD to protect one’s

forces and allies. Some 20 states have ballistic missiles today, and one 

count places the number of nations with cruise missiles at 77.10 Given the 

precedents set in recent wars, states are not hesitant to use cruise or 

ballistic missiles when it serves some military purpose. Witness the IranIraq War (1980-1988), the first Gulf War in 1991, and the increasingly 

common U.S. reliance on land-attack missiles as shown in Operations 

Desert Fox (Iraq, 1998), Allied Freedom (Kosovo, 1999), Enduring 

Freedom (Afghanistan, 2001), and Iraqi Freedom (2003). 

The technology necessary to develop ballistic or cruise missiles is no 

longer exotic or difficult. Many states in all regions of the globe have at 

least a rudimentary force of missiles, and some rogue nations are pursuing 

longer-range systems that can threaten the United States or its allies in

Europe and East Asia. 

The current U.S. push for deploying an initial missile defense

capability is driven by a perception of a growing and increasingly 

unpredictable ballistic missile threat. While some have argued that the 

proliferation of ballistic missiles is actually declining and that the number 

of long-range missiles is actually decreasing from the levels of the Cold 

War, the ballistic missile threat to the United States, its friends, allies, and 

forces deployed abroad, can best be understood in view of the following 

key assertions frequently attested to by Intelligence Community officials.

First, the U.S. Intelligence Community has repeatedly asserted that

missile capabilities are growing. Those countries with ballistic missile 

programs continue to improve their capabilities in terms of range, payload 

capacity, and reliability.

Second, the number of missiles of all ranges is increasing. Mediumand short-range ballistic missile systems already pose a significant threat 

to U.S. interests, forces, and allies overseas. 

Third, there has been increased trade and cooperation among 

countries that have been recipients of missile technologies. According to 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 9

an unclassified summary of a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), 

“Proliferation of ballistic missile-related technologies, materials, and 

expertise—especially by Russian, Chinese, and North Korean entities—

has enabled emerging missile states to accelerate missile development, 

acquire new capabilities, and potentially develop even more capable and 

longer-range future systems.”11 Ballistic missile technology based on

early Russian Scud missiles, in particular, has been widely distributed and 

proliferated. In some cases, such as Pakistan and North Korea, countries 

that were at one time the recipients of ballistic missile technology 

(Pakistan from both the United States, in terms of space launch 

technology, and North Korea from the Soviet Union, in terms of military 

hardware) have now become exporters of expertise, components, systems,

and production capabilities. 

Fourth, a small number of countries continue to work toward longerrange systems, including ICBMs, often under the guise of developing a 

peaceful space launch capability. Once a nation has achieved the ability to 

place an object in space, they have in effect acquired the ability to also

deliver a comparably sized weapons payload anywhere on the face of the 

earth. 

Fifth, while only a relative handful of countries have significant 

ballistic missile capabilities, some of those countries are among the least 

responsible in the world, have expressed the most hostility toward the 

United States, and have demonstrated a disregard for international

agreements and norms of behavior. Moreover, these regimes are seeking 

to acquire both long-range ballistic missile capability and weapons of 

mass destruction, including biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. It 

is this confluence of WMD proliferation and ballistic missile technology

that is particularly worrisome. This is partly why the U.S. Intelligence 

Community has assessed that “the probability that a missile with a weapon

of mass destruction will be used against U.S. forces is higher today than 

during most of the Cold War, and will continue to grow.”12

Ballistic missiles are not the only emerging threats of concern. Over

the next ten years, the U.S. Intelligence Community believes that at least 

nine countries will be involved in producing cruise missiles, and of these, 

several will make their missiles available for export.13 Cruise missiles are

easy to build or acquire, they are relatively cheap, they are easily 

transportable, and they require less maintenance, training, and logistical 
10 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

support than either manned aircraft or more sophisticated ballistic 

missiles. They have long flight ranges and potentially high accuracy. 

Because they can fly at low altitudes, they are difficult to detect by 

traditional radar. This difficulty (or advantage) is compounded by a low 

radar cross-section, which can be reduced even further by using signature 

reduction technologies. Moreover, the effective employment of U.S. 

Navy and Air Force cruise missiles for precision strikes against land-based 

targets in both the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars has reinforced the perception 

that cruise missiles are an attractive counterforce option. The United 

States also has, on several occasions, employed them in a retaliatory or 

coercive role.14 Currently, it is estimated that there are over 80,000 cruise

missiles in the arsenals of over 70 nations. Consequently, virtually all 

U.S. theater missile defense systems have been designed and tested with 

some capability against cruise missiles. 

U.S. intelligence has also addressed the question of the political 

motivation behind the growth in ballistic missile technology. In Senate 

testimony, intelligence officials have stated that: 

[A]cquiring long-range ballistic missiles armed with a 

weapon of mass destruction probably will enable weaker 

countries to do three things that they otherwise might not 

be able to do: deter, constrain, and harm the United States.

To achieve these objectives, the missiles need not be 

deployed in large numbers; with even a few such weapons, 

these countries would judge that they had the capability to 

threaten at least politically significant damage to the United

States or its allies. They need not be highly accurate; the

ability to target a large urban area is sufficient. They need

not be highly reliable, because their strategic value is

derived primarily from the implicit or explicit threat of 

their use, not the near certain outcome of such use. Some

of these systems may be intended for their political impact 

as potential terror weapons, while others may be built to

perform more specific military missions, facing the United 

States with a broad spectrum of motivations, development 

timelines, and resulting hostile capabilities. In many ways, 

such weapons are not envisioned at the outset as
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 11

operational weapons of war, but primarily as strategic 

weapons of deterrence and coercive diplomacy.15

IV. The Rumsfeld Commission Report

Current ballistic missile threat perceptions, as they pertain to political 

support for the U.S. missile defense program, are largely a product of two 

key events: the publication in July 1998 of the Rumsfeld Commission 

report and the August 1998 launch of the North Korean Taepo Dong, a

prototype long-range ballistic missile, which was widely interpreted as

confirming the assessments contained in the Rumsfeld Commission report. 

This section provides some background on perceptions of the emerging 

ballistic missile threat that precipitated the current missile defense 

program, and how those threat perceptions evolved up to the present. 

In November 1995, the National Intelligence Council, which is made

up of 13 intelligence agencies, released its 1995 National Intelligence 

Estimate (NIE).16 According to reports that began appearing in 

newspapers, this NIE concluded “no country, other than the major 

declared nuclear powers, will develop or otherwise acquire a ballistic 

missile in the next 15 years that could threaten the contiguous 48 states or 

Canada.” This conclusion was controversial, especially in Congress. 

Many Republicans, who had assumed majority control a year earlier in the 

1994 elections, charged that the NIE’s conclusions had been leaked to the 

press in order to help defeat support for increased funding for missile

defenses. 

Critics charged that this report contained a number of flaws, 

contradictions, and ambiguities. They also charged that the authors of the 

report had downplayed the potential impact of foreign assistance to

countries developing ballistic missiles, had underestimated the impact of 

space launch vehicle development on missile proliferation, and assumed

that countries that currently have missiles will not sell them. It was further

asserted that the report discounted the threat posed by long-range missiles 

in China and Russia. To Congressional representatives of Alaska and 

Hawaii it was especially troublesome that the report had excluded their 

respective states from the territory to be defended against missile attack. 
12 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

Consequently, Republican leaders in Congress ordered the Intelligence 

Community to reexamine the evidence, to assess whether the intelligence 

conclusions were justified, and to determine whether the Clinton 

administration had exerted undue influence in “politicizing” the process, 

thus impairing the integrity of this Intelligence Community product. 

Robert Gates, former deputy national security adviser and director of 

the Central Intelligence Agency during the first Bush administration, was 

chosen to chair the panel, which reviewed the available intelligence and 

the process used to compile the NIE’s conclusions. It issued its own 

report in December 1996. Gates’s Panel concluded that “the intelligence 

community has a strong case that for sound technical reasons, the United 

States is unlikely to face an indigenously developed and tested 

intercontinental ballistic missile threat from the Third World before 

2010.”17 Further, the Gates Panel determined that there was “no breach of

the integrity of the intelligence process.” In nearly every respect, the 

Gates Panel endorsed the findings of the earlier 1995 estimate and 

dismissed the idea that the United States would soon be threatened by 

long-range ballistic missiles launched from rogue states. Thus, it provided 

additional ammunition to those claiming that there was little pressing need 

for increasing funding for missile defenses. 

This did not satisfy the supporters of missile defense in the U.S. 

Congress. Unhappy with the Gates Panel conclusions, Congress chartered 

another group of outside experts to take a second look at the 1995 

estimate. This time, Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense in the 

Ford administration, was chosen to chair the panel, formally known as

“The Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United 

States,” but more commonly known as the Rumsfeld Commission. This 

panel not only reviewed the intelligence used to produce the 1995 

estimate, but interviewed scores of outside experts on missile technology 

and proliferation. It issued its report on July 15, 1998, and, unlike the

endorsement of the Gates Panel, this report challenged many findings of

the reported 1995 estimate. 

The Rumsfeld Commission’s principal conclusion was that a country 

like North Korea could deploy an ICBM “within about five years of a 

decision to develop” one.18 Among its other key findings, the Rumsfeld 

Commission concluded that the ballistic missile threat to the United States

was real and growing; this threat was greater than previously assessed; and
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 13

the United States may have little or no warning of new threats. The

report’s conclusions were spelled out in an executive summary: 

• Concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile 

nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear 

payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed 

forces and its friends and allies. 

• The newer ballistic missile-equipped nations’ capabilities will not 

match those of U.S. systems for accuracy or reliability. However, 

they would be able to inflict major destruction on the United States

within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability.

During several of those years, the United States might not be aware 

that such a decision had been made. 

• The threat to the United States posed by these emerging 

capabilities is broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly 

than has been reported in estimates and reports by the Intelligence 

Community. 

• The Intelligence Community's ability to provide timely and

accurate estimates of ballistic missile threats to the United States is

eroding. This erosion has roots both within and beyond the 

intelligence process itself. The Community's capabilities in this

area need to be strengthened in terms of both resources and 

methodology. 

• The warning times the United States can expect of new, 

threatening ballistic missile deployments are being reduced. Under

some plausible scenarios—including re-basing or transfer of 

operational missiles, sea- and air-launch options, shortened 

development programs that might include testing in a third 

country, or some combination of these—the United States might 

well have little or no warning before operational deployment.19

In certain key respects, this report directly contradicted earlier reports. 

For example, both the 1995 intelligence estimate and the Gates Panel 

assumed that the United States would have ample warning of the 

development of a strategic ballistic missile threat in time to allow an

adequate missile defense to be developed to counter that threat. In 
14 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

contrast, the members of the Rumsfeld Commission concluded 

unanimously that the United States needed to assume that there might be

no strategic warning of a rogue state’s acquiring the capability to strike

the United States with a long-range ballistic missile. 

The Rumsfeld Commission report explained that three crucial factors

were shaping the emerging ballistic missile threat. 

1. Different Standards: Missile developing countries don’t use the 

same accuracy, safety or environmental standards as would the 

United States. Therefore, their programs can move ahead much 

faster than assumed. 

2. Foreign Assistance: Sale of components or even complete missile 

systems, together with substantial technical assistance from foreign

powers, can help accelerate the development of a rogue state 

missile threat much faster than assumed. 

3. Concealment and Deception: Rogue states determined to pursue 

developing ballistic missiles take great care to conceal their 

ballistic missile and WMD programs from Western intelligence

services—which makes it much harder for the intelligence 

community to accurately predict these threats.20

V. The North Korean Missile Test 

The Rumsfeld Commission report was released in late July 1998. 

Had it not been for an event that transpired within weeks of its release, this 

report may have simply been additional fodder in the partisan battles over 

missile defense funding and the fate of the ABM Treaty. However, on 

August 31, 1998, North Korea launched a ballistic missile named the 

Taepo Dong, thus confirming that North Korea did in fact have a program 

for developing long-range ballistic missiles. Even though the missile 

ultimately failed to place its payload into orbit, this launch was widely 

interpreted as validating the Rumsfeld Commission’s conclusions. While 

the U.S. Intelligence Community had anticipated this launch, the missile

itself demonstrated several key characteristics that caught Western 

intelligence services by surprise.

21
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 15

In particular, the Taepo Dong missile launched by North Korea 

contained a third stage, considered an important feature of an 

intercontinental-range ballistic missile. It demonstrated the technology for 

third stage separation. It demonstrated advanced fuel technology. It 

showed that North Korea had critical command and control capabilities for 

launching and guiding such a missile. It had previously been assumed that 

these technical barriers to acquiring long-range ballistic missile capability 

would be hard for a rogue state to surmount. 

In addition, the missile’s flight demonstrated one other often 

overlooked feature with tremendous political ramifications that would 

reverberate for years to come. It overflew the territory of Japan. This

violated an unwritten taboo in international space launch practice that 

dictated that flight tests of missiles should not overfly the populated 

territory of another nation, for the sake of avoiding the appearance of 

initiating a surprise attack. The fact that North Korea ignored this taboo 

had the effect of precipitating growing interest in and support for missile 

defense in Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. 

But its most important consequence was to confirm the conclusions of

the Rumsfeld Commission report, to energize and consolidate support for 

missile defense in the U.S. Congress, and to force the Intelligence

Community to revise its threat assessment. 

In response to both the Rumsfeld Commission’s criticisms of its 

assumptions and methodology and to the political furor in the wake of the 

North Korean Taepo Dong launch, the Intelligence Community set about

producing a new, revised report. This was released to Congress in 1999. 

According to Senate testimony by senior Intelligence Community official 

Robert D. Walpole, this report differed from previous reports in three 

important ways. First, it extended the period of assessment from 2010 to 

2015. Second, the Intelligence Community, drawing on expertise both 

inside and outside the Intelligence Community, focused more on when a

country could acquire an ICBM, in addition to assessing when they would 

be likely to do so. Third, the report recognized that a threat to the United 

States from a rogue state ballistic missile program would materialize 

before such a state had deployed an arsenal of missiles in the traditional 

sense; therefore, the Intelligence Community adopted the approach of 

using the first successful flight test to indicate an “initial threat

availability.”

22
16 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

The 1999 NIE was entitled “Foreign Missile Developments and the 

Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015.” Preempting the possibility of a

leak to the press, and in response to criticism that secrecy promoted the 

possibility of politicization, the CIA took the unusual step of preparing an 

unclassified summary of this report.23 According to this public version, 

“Most Intelligence Community agencies project that before 2015 the 

United States most likely will face ICBM threats from North Korea and

Iran, and possibly from Iraq – barring significant changes in their political

orientations – in addition to the longstanding missile forces of Russia and 

China.” In addition, the Intelligence Community confirmed that shortand medium-range ballistic missiles “already pose a significant threat 

overseas to U.S. interests, military forces, and allies.”

24

Finally, the 1999 NIE addressed the debate over whether rogue states 

would use technologically complex long-range ballistic missiles to deliver 

weapons of mass destruction to U.S. territory, or whether they would 

resort to other, less expensive, and less complex means of delivering 

weapons, such as by truck, ship, or airplane. The report asserted that, for 

the immediate future, attack by these other means was actually much more 

likely than attack by long-range ballistic missile, “primarily because 

nonmissile delivery means are less costly, easier to acquire, and more 

reliable and accurate.” However, the report also stated “[m]issiles provide 

a level of prestige, coercive diplomacy, and deterrence that nonmissile 

means do not.”25 Subsequent NIEs have not varied substantially from the 

1999 edition. 

VI. U.S. Efforts Since 1993 

To understand the priorities of U.S. missile defense efforts over the 

course of the decade that began in 1993, it is necessary to review the 

lessons learned from U.S. experiences with missile attack and missile 

defense in the 1991 Gulf War. This experience led to the formation of an 

unprecedented political consensus for developing and deploying TMD 

systems, reflected in the 1991 Missile Defense Act. However, this 

consensus did not extend to developing national missile defense (NMD) 

systems or defense against ICBMs, primarily due to a disagreement 

whether a long-range threat existed. There was also skepticism about the 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 17

technology for such a defense as well as continued support for the ABM 

Treaty, which limited defenses against long-range ballistic missiles, but

did not restrict the development of defenses against short- and mediumrange ballistic missiles, or against cruise missiles. 

Theater Missile Defense Programs26

Prior to the 1991 Gulf War it was assumed by many defense planners 

that opponents armed with ballistic missiles would either be deterred from 

firing them against U.S. targets for fear of devastating retaliation, or U.S. 

forces would be able to relatively easily and quickly identify ballistic

missile launchers with existing surveillance capabilities. Once such

launchers had been identified, they would be targeted and destroyed 

before they could pose a substantial threat to U.S. or allied assets. It was 

further assumed that even if deterring such attacks failed, and even if the 

U.S. Air Force or Army Special Forces were unable to effectively preempt 

such threats, attacks by missiles would have relatively little strategic or 

political impact. 

The reality of the U.S. experience in the first Gulf War, however,

challenged and refuted these assumptions. The Iraqis were not deterred 

from using their ballistic missile assets, even against non-combatants like 

Israel. Mobile Scud launchers proved much more elusive than expected, 

and even more difficult to destroy with confidence. Even those that were 

damaged were often quickly reconstituted or replaced by reserve units.

On February 25, 1991, a single Iraqi Scud missile slammed into a

warehouse being used as billeting quarters for U.S. military personnel in 

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 27 Army reservists and injuring nearly 100

others. This was the single largest loss of life by any ally in the war. It 

marked a turning point in the debate over missile defense, and it led 

directly to renewed calls for developing and deploying theater missile 

defenses. It became clear in the aftermath of this attack that some kind of 

active theater missile defense would have to play an important role in 

protecting forward deployed forces in any future conflict. 

The Dhahran attack also helped forge a new consensus in Congress 

on the need for theater missile defenses, and resulted in passage of the

Missile Defense Act of 1991. Among many other provisions, this 

legislation urged the President to pursue immediate discussions with the 
18 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

Soviet Union on amending the ABM Treaty to permit deploying additional 

missile defense interceptors, to increase utilization of space-based sensors, 

and to clarify the distinctions between TMD and ABM systems. This, in 

turn, led to a sustained programmatic emphasis on TMD acquisition that is 

now bearing fruit. The United States has begun deploying a family of 

highly capable TMD systems that are serving as the technological and 

operational precursors to more capable strategic missile defenses. 

A consensus was building that TMD was necessary for America to

carry out its foreign policy. As one analyst put it, 

[A] compelling case can be made for theater missile 

defense deployments in strategically sensitive areas where

U.S. allies and friends face growing threats...welldesigned, forward-deployed theater missile defenses could 

alleviate allied concerns, signal U.S. resolve for friends in

need, and possibly intercept missiles carrying lethal

weapons. The downside risks of having forward-deployed 

theater missile defenses near or in troubled regions are far 

lower than the risks of abstention.27

By 1993, two years after the conclusion of the Gulf War, the Army, 

the Navy, and the Air Force had all initiated new TMD development 

programs, or had accelerated existing ones. These programs can be 

divided into two categories: lower-tier interceptors, those that cover an

area of 20 to 30 miles in diameter and seek to intercept missiles in range 

at altitudes of 10-20 kilometers, well within the atmosphere; and upper

tier interceptors, those that can protect a much broader area and seek to 

intercept intermediate-range missiles at the edges of the atmosphere or

even in outer space. The U.S. Army’s Patriot missile and the Navy’s

Aegis air defense system are the most prominent examples of lower tier 

systems, and the Army’s Theater High-Altitude Area Defense program is

the most promising and mature of the upper tier systems. 

Multiple systems are under consideration for the TMD mission.

These have been undergoing continuous refinement and change for years

as testing validates some and eliminates others.28 Three systems were 

originally identified in 1993 as key elements of TMD; in addition, a 

fourth system was under consideration and would be decided in a “runoff” that would select either the Navy Upper Tier, the Air Force 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 19

Airborne Laser, or the Army Corps Surface-to-Air-Missile (SAM) 

(which later was removed from this competition when it became the 

multinational medium-range extended air defense system, or MEADS).

Other TMD programs that have been under development since 1993 

include THAAD (under revision, no tests since 1999), Patriot Advanced 

Capability (PAC-3) (tested most successfully in Iraq March 2003), Navy 

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (first deployments scheduled in 2005), 

and the Airborne Laser (which has had test flights for the aircraft

platform). In addition, the United States has three international 

programs which are fairly well advanced: Arrow, a joint production 

venture with Israel; a new program underway jointly with Japan; and 

MEADS, using the PAC-3 missile, with Germany and Italy. 

Patriot. The Army first introduced the Patriot air defense system in

its anti-theater missile defense role during the first Gulf War, where its

performance was the subject of a fierce post-conflict debate.29 The

Patriot missile system was initially designed in the mid-1980s to be 

effective against both aircraft and short-range ballistic missile threats. 

However, due to concerns over possibly violating the ABM Treaty, its 

anti-missile capabilities were greatly constrained. Only when it appeared 

that a conflict with the Scud-armed forces of Iraq appeared imminent did

the U.S. Army move rapidly to upgrade the Patriot missile systems’ antimissile defense capabilities on the eve of the war. 

In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, it became clear that a more

reliable and effective theater missile defense system was needed, and the 

Army contracted for the development of a follow-on to the Patriot 

system. The new system, dubbed the Patriot Advanced Capability 2, or 

PAC-2, incorporated hit-to-kill technology, rather than proximity blast 

fragmentation kill mechanisms. The PAC-2 came on line around 1995. 

This was immediately followed up by an even newer, more capable

version of the Patriot system, based on an entirely new, much smaller,

but faster missile, called the Patriot Advanced Capability-3. This system

could defend a larger footprint than the older Patriots and PAC-2s. Even 

though it was faster and had greater range, it was a significantly smaller 

missile than the older Patriot, so that four missiles could be carried in the 

same container that before could only carry one. With four containers

per mobile launcher, this increased the firepower of a Patriot unit from 

four missiles to sixteen missiles each. Each missile contained its own 
20 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

radar for homing in on targets, rather than relying on a common, groundbased radar.

The first PAC-3 units were ready for deployment just prior to the

second Gulf War, in 2003, where they were held largely in reserve for 

use against Scud missiles, which ultimately were never fired against 

allied forces. The older, less capable PAC-2s scored most of the 

successes against those shorter-range Iraqi missiles that were engaged.

By 2005, some 350 Patriots will be modified to provide additional 

terminal protection against long-range missile threats. PAC-3 has been 

designed to defend against cruise missiles, as well, and has been shown

to be effective in this role in tests against cruise missile-type targets. 

Aegis. The U.S. Navy has a long history of developing capabilities 

for defense of its ships against threats from the air, including cruise 

missiles, anti-ship missiles, and, more recently, short- and medium-range 

ballistic missiles. With the post-Gulf War emphasis on theater missile 

defense, the Navy moved to upgrade its existing Aegis Combat System

to give it anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities. The Aegis air 

defense system was first deployed in the 1970s, based on the standard 

family of guided surface-to-air missiles. In 1997, the Navy established a

requirement for an upgraded missile that would have improved 

capabilities for intercepting ballistic missiles. This new missile entered 

development soon thereafter and was dubbed Standard Missile (SM)-3. 

Aegis-equipped cruisers are deployed by other nations as well, 

which makes their conversion to TMD capabilities much easier. Japan 

operates four modified Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers and plans 

to purchase two more. Spain is currently operating or building four F100 class Aegis frigates, and Norway is procuring five of this same type. 

South Korea is building Aegis-equipped variants of its KDX destroyers, 

and Australia is also considering acquiring Aegis-equipped “Air Warfare 

Destroyers” that could, at a later date, be adapted for a theater missile 

defense role. 

By early 2005, at least two Aegis destroyers are to be equipped with 

the new Standard Missile-3 interceptor, while 15 such ships are to be

fitted with the surveillance and radar tracking systems that support the

SM-3. By the end of 2005, the Navy hopes to have three Aegis

destroyers equipped with a total of 22 SM-3 interceptors. SM-3 missiles
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 21

will also be designed with an inherent capability to defend against the 

cruise missile threat, just as is the case with PAC-3. 

THAAD. In September 1992, the Army initiated the Theater HighAltitude Area Defense program, or THAAD. Currently, this is the most 

mature of the upper tier TMD systems in development. With a range of 

over 200 kilometers, and a maximum intercept altitude of 150 km, 

THAAD is designed to intercept both short- and medium-range ballistic 

missiles either within or above the atmosphere. THAAD will have a 

significantly more capable radar than the PAC-3, with the ability to 

acquire missile threats at ranges up to 1,000 km. In combination with 

the PAC-3, it will provide layered missile defense protection (that is, a

shoot-look-shoot capability) for deployed forces as well as population 

centers. Low-rate initial production of up to 40 missiles per year is 

currently planned to begin in 2006. The U.S. Army is expected to

acquire 80-99 THAAD launchers, 18 ground-based radars, and a total of 

1,422 THAAD missiles. Like each of the other TMD systems discussed 

above, THAAD will also have a built-in counter-cruise missile 

capability. 

Airborne Laser (ABL). The Air Force’s contribution to tactical 

missile defense is a modified Boeing 747 aircraft carrying a large

chemical oxygen-iodine laser. The laser will shoot down missiles 

during their first phase of flight, the boost phase. As originally 

planned, it will be able to hit short-range ballistic missiles but 

eventually ICBMs, as well. The aircraft is currently undergoing test

flights, but for technical reasons it has not yet been mated with its laser. 

Plans call for two or three operational ABL platforms to be available 

between 2006 and 2008.

Long-Range Missile Defense Programs 

Spending on TMD systems substantially increased following the 

first Gulf War and the passage of the 1991 Missile Defense Act, but 

funding for national missile defense programs actually decreased 

throughout much of the 1990s. The issue continued to be tied up in a

rancorous debate over the fate of the ABM Treaty. See Figure 2. 
22 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

Figure 2. U.S. Missile Defense Budget Allocations by Fiscal Year, 1992-2005 

$12.0

The contentious status of this debate began to change in the summer

of 1998, with the release of the Rumsfeld Commission report and the

North Korean launch of an intercontinental-range Taepo Dong. These 

consecutive events forced the Clinton administration to realign its 

priorities on missile defense, and it subsequently devised the so-called 

“3+3” plan. Under this plan national missile defenses would be developed 

and evaluated over a three year period, following which, if a decision were

made to deploy them, a three year deployment plan would be adopted. 

The assumption was that given three years warning, the United States 

could deploy up to 100 interceptors (the ABM Treaty limit) at the old 

Safeguard site in North Dakota.30

The Clinton administration determined that it would evaluate any 

proposal to deploy missile defenses on the basis of four criteria: 1) whether 

the emerging ballistic missile threat justified proceeding with deploying

missile defenses, 2) whether existing or prospective missile defense 

technologies were sufficiently effective and mature, 3) whether they were 

4.1

3.8

2.8 2.8

3.5 3.7 3.9

4.5

4.2

5.1

7.7

7.4

9.1

10

$0.0

$2.0

$4.0

$6.0

$8.0

$10.0

Fiscal Year

Billion Dollars Total FY Missile Defense 

Budget Allocation in $B

GHW Bush WJ Clinton GW Bush

FY92 FY93 FY94 FY95 FY96 FY97 FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 23

affordable, and 4) an assessment of the ramifications of such a deployment 

on international strategic stability and U.S. arms control commitments. 

The administration also proposed a basic system architecture that would 

have consisted of 100 interceptors, a new ABM radar, and upgrades to five 

existing early warning radars. The primary purpose of announcing this 

architecture was not to provide a blueprint for the Defense Department but 

rather to provide overall negotiating guidance to those diplomats working 

to convince Russia to amend the ABM Treaty to allow such a deployment. 

However, on September 1, 2000, President Clinton announced his 

decision to defer deployment of a national missile defense system, saying 

“the system as a whole is not yet proven,” instead urging further research, 

development, and testing.31

VII. Missile Defense and the Bush Administration 

Upon taking office in January 2001, the George W. Bush 

administration immediately began setting a radically different course for 

missile defense, making it the centerpiece of his new strategic framework 

for national security. President Bush and his senior foreign and defense 

advisers did not dispute the validity of the four criteria considered by the 

Clinton administration but believed that each of these criteria had been or

could be met: The threat was imminent, the technology was available (or 

could be developed given freedom from ABM Treaty constraints); it was

affordable; and the diplomatic and arms control ramifications could be 

managed. The Bush administration took a much more hostile stance

toward the ABM Treaty. Rather than thinking of the Treaty as the

“cornerstone of strategic stability,” it was viewed more as an outdated 

“millstone” around the neck of American national security. 

The administration soon dropped the “N” from “NMD” and began 

referring to “missile defense” more generically. This recognized that the 

distinction between TMD and NMD was becoming technologically 

blurred, especially for some U.S. allies. This move was also intended to

signal that the distinction was an artificial construct of the ABM Treaty 

and that all missile defense systems should be considered as making a 

contribution to defeating the threat of ballistic missile attack. The 

administration announced that it would seek the necessary amendments to 
24 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

the ABM Treaty to allow more robust testing of missile defense systems 

and their possible deployment in ways then prohibited by the ABM 

Treaty. But it also made clear that should Russia refuse to grant such 

amendments, the United States was prepared to exercise its right under

Article XV to withdraw from the Treaty upon the expiration of a six 

month advance notification. 

President Bush began laying the conceptual basis for missile defense 

by stating in a speech on May 1, 2001, that the United States needed “new 

approaches to deterrence,” approaches that relied on both offensive and 

defensive means.32 This was also part of a broad push for a “new strategic 

framework” for U.S.-Russian relations, one that would reduce the 

centrality of nuclear weapons and formal arms control agreements in the 

relationship. Finally, the administration restructured the Ballistic Missile

Defense Organization, elevating its status by renaming it the Missile 

Defense Agency (MDA) and seeking substantial funding increases for a 

range of missile defense programs. 

There was an increased recognition by all Americans of the real 

meaning of vulnerability following the September 11, 2001, attacks on 

New York City and Washington, D.C. If hijacked airplanes could wreak 

such devastation, wondered analysts, what damage could ballistic missiles 

with nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads do to the country? This led 

to a nonpartisan call for larger defense budgets, including funding for 

ballistic, cruise, and theater missile defense. 

At about the same time, consultations began in earnest at all levels of 

diplomatic contact with Russia over amending the ABM Treaty. 

However, Russia resisted this, and warned that U.S. deployment of missile 

defenses would provoke a renewed arms race, obligate Russia to withdraw 

from the START Treaty, destroy further chances for new arms control 

agreements, lead to the utter collapse of the whole international arms

control regime, undermine international efforts to combat the proliferation 

of weapons of mass destruction, and lead to a new Cold War between 

Russia and the United States. Consequently, these consultations did little

to narrow the gap between the Bush administration and Russia over 

amending the ABM Treaty, or alternatively, fashioning a cooperative exit 

from the Treaty. 

However, several converging factors forced a resolution of the 

impasse between the United States and Russia over amending the ABM
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 25

Treaty in the fall of 2001. The administration believed that a long-range 

ballistic missile threat to the United States could emerge at any time and 

was determined not to wait until such a threat had actually materialized to 

begin preparing for it. The longest lead-time item in the administration’s 

missile defense program involved the construction of a new ABM radar on 

the island of Shemya, Alaska, where the short construction season

mandated pressing ahead with an early decision to start. However, it was 

not clear at what point such construction plans would cross the line of 

noncompliance with the ABM Treaty. If the United States wanted to 

avoid outright violation of the Treaty, it would have to provide the 

requisite notice of withdrawal six months prior to the beginning of the 

2002 construction season in Alaska—early in the fall of 2001. 

Furthermore, the administration wanted urgently to begin exploring other 

technological approaches to missile defense then banned by the ABM 

Treaty, and it wanted to test certain theater missile defense assets, such as 

the radars on Aegis cruisers, against strategic ballistic missile threats—a 

step that was also banned by the Treaty.33

The Decision to Withdraw from the ABM Treaty 

On December 13, 2001, President Bush announced that the United 

States had given Russia formal notice of its decision to withdraw from the 

ABM Treaty, stating that “the ABM Treaty hinders our government’s 

ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue 

state missile attacks.”34 Within just a few hours of this announcement, the 

Russian government released a statement by President Vladimir Putin 

characterizing the U.S. decision as “a mistake” but stating that it was not a 

security threat to Russia (thus, there would be no arms race response), that 

Russia was determined to sustain improvements in U.S.-Russian relations

(thus, there would be no return to the Cold War), and urging the United 

States to enter into a legally-binding agreement on further reductions in 

strategic offensive arms (thus, there would be prospects for further arms

control arrangements between the United States and Russia).

It appears from later statements by key administration players that 

negotiations over amending the ABM Treaty finally broke down over 

apparent Russian insistence on granting the United States relief from

ABM Treaty testing constraints only on a “case-by-case” basis, which
26 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

President Bush was entirely unwilling to do. In any event, this 

announcement set in play several things. First, in what amounted to a de 

facto quid pro quo, President Bush reversed his earlier opposition to a

legally binding strategic offensive arms reduction agreement along the 

lines of the U.S. and Russian unilateral pledges issued at the November 

2001 Crawford Summit. The Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty – a 

follow-on to the START Agreement – was quickly negotiated and signed 

in Moscow on May 29, 2002. Second, U.S. withdrawal from the ABM 

Treaty became effective on June 14, 2002. But even prior to that date, the 

Defense Department began putting into place plans for several activities:

• testing TMD systems against long-range ballistic missile targets, 

• planning an outreach effort to allies,

• calling on allies to participate with the United States in the 

development of a missile defense system, and 

• developing ideas for deploying missile defenses outside the limits

previously allowed by the ABM Treaty that would be presented to 

the President later in the summer of 2002. 

Finally, and most importantly, these proposals to the President led to 

a second announcement from the White House, almost exactly a year later, 

that the United States would proceed to deploy an “initial defense 

capability” by the end of 2004.

Initial Defense Capability 

Having secured virtual acquiescence from the Russian Federation in 

its break from the ABM Treaty, the Missile Defense Agency proceeded to

conduct a series of tests that incorporated heretofore prohibited activities, 

including notably the participation of ship-based radar in two successive 

missile interceptor tests. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense began

drafting plans for rapidly moving toward deploying some form of defense 

against long-range missiles by the end of the President’s first term in 

office. Such plans were presented to the President in August 2002. 

It is not clear from the public record exactly what options the Defense 

Department recommended to the President in August, but a few months
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 27

later, on December 17, 2002, President Bush announced that he had 

directed the Secretary of Defense to proceed with fielding “an initial set of 

missile defense capabilities” by 2004.35 He noted that these capabilities

would serve as a starting point for fielding improved and expanded missile 

defense capabilities later. His announcement also explicitly eschewed

defining an “architecture” for the system or a broad outline of how all the 

pieces would fit together. In an accompanying Department of Defense 

news release, the administration simply said that there would be “no final 

or fixed missile defense architecture. Rather, the composition of missile 

defenses, including the number, type, and location of systems deployed, 

will change over time to meet the changing threat and take advantage of

technological developments.”36

The announcement contained mid-term as well as longer-term

objectives. Future capabilities would be a product of the “spiral 

development” approach to evolving the system architecture, whereby new 

components would be evaluated for incorporation into the operational 

force at intervals, or “blocks,” every two years. The capabilities planned 

for operational readiness in 2004 and 2005, or the first block, according to 

this announcement, would include: 

• 20 ground-based interceptors, of which 16 would be located at Fort 

Greely, Alaska and 4 at Vandenberg AFB, California; 

• up to 20 sea-based interceptors (using the Standard Missile-3) on 

three existing Aegis ships, whose radar and data processing 

systems would be upgraded to accommodate these missiles; 

• additional Patriot Advanced Capability-3 units; 

• upgraded sensors based on land, at sea, and in space, including

upgraded radars at Shemya, Alaska; Fylingdales, UK, and upon 

approval from the Danish government, at Thule, Greenland; and 

• an expanded Pacific Test Bed to provide greater flexibility in

testing geometry (allowing, for example, launches of interceptors 

on a more realistic west to east trajectory, instead of the existing
28 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

restriction of launching from Vandenberg in an east to west 

trajectory). 

This first set of initial capabilities falls far short of what the 

acquisition community would normally refer to as “Initial Operational 

Capability,” or IOC, and has therefore been given a different moniker: 

“Initial Defensive Operations” (IDO) to denote that these capabilities will 

represent little more than test assets but will have some operational 

capability as well. For example, no actual test launches of missiles will be 

conducted from the silos at Fort Greely, since this would require flying 

over populated territory, something the United States has avoided 

throughout the nuclear era. All such tests will be from Kodiak Island, off 

the coast of Alaska, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base facility, or from 

the island of Kwajalein in the Pacific. However, the silos at Fort Greely 

will contain actual operational missiles that could be launched in the event 

of a crisis. 

Under the approach announced by the President, and subsequently 

elaborated by Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) officials, this 

Initial Defensive Operations capability may be improved in the future 

through additional deployments at subsequent two-year intervals or 

blocks, such as deployment of additional ground- and sea-based 

interceptors, including: 

• Patriot (PAC-3) units; 

• initial deployment of THAAD; 

• deployment of the Airborne Laser system; 

• development of a family of boost-phase and midcourse hit-to-kill 

interceptors based on sea-, air-, and ground-based platforms; and 

• development of enhanced sensor capabilities; and development and

testing of space-based defenses. 

Surveillance Systems 

The radar and surveillance component of this initial capability could

ultimately be its most important and lasting legacy. Several key programs 

are underway to upgrade U.S. and allied early warning and tracking 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 29

capabilities as a contribution to the missile defense mission. They include

the following: 

X-Band Radar. In order to discriminate between reentry vehicles and

decoys or other countermeasures, the system requires an improved radar

system in the X frequency band. Cold War radars, such as the Ballistic 

Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) at Thule, Greenland, 

Fylingdales Moor, England, and Clear, Alaska, operate in the L band and 

lack the fidelity to differentiate between similar objects in space—a

capability that has been shown during missile intercept tests by the

prototype X-band radar on the Kwajalein Atoll. Accordingly, the plan 

calls for upgrades to the BMEWS sites and the development of a floating 

mobile X-band radar built on an offshore oil platform that, by 2005, can 

be moved to the region of greatest threat. In the interim, the Cobra Dane 

radar (an L-band system) on Shemya Island, Alaska, will be upgraded to 

provide some discrimination capability along the route of the most likely 

attack corridor from Northeast Asia. 

Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Formerly called the SBIRSHigh system, this will consist of six satellites: four in geosynchronous

orbit and two in an elliptical orbit. These will replace the existing Defense 

Support Program satellites and provide early warning of missile launches, 

nuclear detonation, or other thermal activity around the globe. In 

particular, they will track and discriminate among missiles during their 

flight, and provide sensor data to the battle management system. The first 

new satellite is scheduled for launch in 2006. 

Space Surveillance and Tracking System (SSTS). Formerly called

SBIRS-Low, this system envisions a constellation of satellites in low-earth 

orbit that would track and discriminate between incoming warheads and 

decoys. While SBIRS-Low originally projected a requirement for some

30 satellites to maintain global coverage, SSTS will initially deploy only 

two satellites, launched in 2007. At least 18 satellites will eventually be

necessary to cover key areas of concern around the world. 

XI. The Bush Plan for Missile Defense 

In January 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld described the 

administration’s missile defense objectives this way: 
30 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

First, to defend the U.S., deployed forces, allies, and friends. 

Second, to employ a Ballistic Missile Defense System 

(BMDS) that layers defenses to intercept missiles in all 

phases of the flight (i.e., boost, midcourse, and terminal) 

against all ranges of threats. Third, to enable the Services to 

field elements of the overall BMDS as soon as practicable.37

The specifics of the system were outlined in the 2001 Nuclear Posture 

Review, highlights of which were publicly released in January 2002, and 

at a Defense Department press conference in December 2002. Leading 

government officials identified the parts of the missile defense plan that 

they envisioned putting in place by the year 2008. These include an 

airborne laser to shoot down missiles during their boost phase, a groundbased interceptor force to hit reentry vehicles during the mid-course phase 

of their trajectory, sea-based missiles for defense against incoming 

warheads in the mid and terminal phases, terminal defenses against any 

long-range missiles that reach the United States, and a satellite system that 

can track missiles from launch to terminal phase and distinguish between 

warheads and decoys. All of this would be tied together by a far-flung 

command and control system. The program’s goal was no longer to 

deploy a complete, working system to defend against specific threats;

rather, it was to field missile defense capabilities as they became available, 

and then link them to the existing infrastructure.

The current plan for a layered missile defense of the United States

and its deployed forces and allies therefore contains a number of different 

systems. The first part, tactical Patriot PAC-3 missiles, have already been 

deployed with U.S. forces in Iraq and proven themselves in combat testing 

there. The second phase will be the Ground-Based Mid-Course Missile 

Defense (GMD), which will see its first interceptor missiles placed on

operational status sometime in 2004.38 Other elements of the complex 

system are under development, as well. The aircraft for the Airborne

Laser has had its first test flight; major strategic warning radar systems 

from the Cold War are being upgraded to handle the more stringent 

requirements of missile defense and warhead discrimination; sea-based 

point defense weapons and ships are being readied for deployment a year 

after GMD; the two space-based infrared satellite systems are under 

development; and, testing continues on additional tactical missiles, as well 

as a battle management system to tie everything together. 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 31

XII. The Way Ahead 

This will not be the first time the United States has attempted to 

deploy an operational anti-ballistic missile defense system, leading some 

individuals to ask whether “the third time will be the charm.”

39 The

chances that the current efforts will lead to a lasting missile defense 

capability will be enhanced by the fact that U.S.-Russian relations have

successfully survived U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. Moreover,

the United States faces a greater number of missile-armed and potentially 

hostile states than during the Cold War, even if it faces fewer numbers of 

long-range ballistic missiles overall. In addition, current missile defense 

systems benefit from advances in key technologies over the past 35 years 

and have a more modest objective than did earlier U.S. ABM systems, 

whose effectiveness was judged by how well they could defend against 

thousands of highly sophisticated Soviet ICBMs and submarine-launched 

ballistic missiles. 

Ten years after the counterproliferation initiative was announced, 

the U.S. missile defense program has made solid technological and 

political strides. Yet its future is far from certain. Many elements of the 

American political spectrum oppose the effort that is being invested in 

missile defenses and highlight the treasure that a robust, working 

defensive shield will cost in the future. On the other hand, advocates of

strategic and tactical missile defenses point out that the cost is less than 

the bill for strategic offensive weaponry in the Cold War and that this is 

a propitious time to move from a defense based on assured destruction to 

one based on defenses. 

Given the concerns over stability during the Cold War, such a major 

shift in our strategic thinking then would have been unthinkable. But

today a number of factors make such a change possible: Russia’s change

from adversary to partner; the rise of small, potentially undeterrable

threats with WMD and the means to deliver them; and the increasing use 

of U.S. military power in an expeditionary mode, where it becomes 

vulnerable to localized missile attack. All of this makes a logical case

for the development of missile defenses. To the degree it is possible, 

few would disagree that we need to shield our fighting forces and allies 

from missile strikes to the extent our technology and funding permit. 
32 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

The Bush administration came into office in 2001 with a Republican 

majority in both houses of Congress and a mandate to deploy a missile 

defense system “as soon as technologically feasible.”40 They have begun 

to do just that, and their reelection in 2004 means that the deployments 

will continue. While the strategic defensive system they will initially field 

looks a lot like the National Missile Defense system of the Clinton years, 

there have been some notable improvements and changes. 

For one thing, the initial 2004 deployment will not be an end point; 

rather, it will mark simply the first step in a long, evolutionary process of 

continuous improvements in what will become a layered defense of North 

America. Second, the concept of layering means that systems previously 

considered tactical (both for operational reasons and because of the 

classification restrictions of the ABM Treaty) will now be included in any

U.S. missile defense system. 

Third, the system will be deployed in stages or blocks, as noted

above, using what the Pentagon is calling a “spiral development” model. 

In this concept, every move up the spiral requires additional testing and 

change. The system is not simply developed, fielded, and forgotten. 

Proponents point out that this way the United States can field something, 

which is “better than nothing.” (More formally, it will “serve as a starting 

point for improved and expanded capabilities later.”) Regular block 

improvements over the next ten years will continue to enhance the 

system’s capabilities.41

Opponents argue that this is a recipe for continuing cost increases and 

unproven technology. Rather than procuring a system the way it has been 

done for the past fifty years, the spiral approach can lead to changed 

priorities, a shortened and relaxed testing schedule, premature 

deployment, and potentially an ineffective defense. According to this 

argument, “the Pentagon is ready to place the system on operational status 

even without the parts needed for it to be effective.”42

XIII. Conclusion 

The ideological nature of the debate over past deployment attempts in 

the George W. Bush administration was muted by the fact that missile

defense proponents were running the White House and both houses of 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 33

Congress. The end of the ABM Treaty and the advocacy of proponents in

all the key offices had, as one writer put it, “allowed the Missile Defense

Agency to focus on developing a missile defense system without being 

whipsawed by high-stakes political fights.” Furthermore, the September 

2001 terrorist attacks “empowered the [P]resident on national security 

issues, reduced the public’s focus on missile defense issues, and made 

opposing the [P]resident on defense programs tough.”43 

There has been both significant progress and important shortfalls in 

U.S. attempts to achieve viable theater and national ballistic missile 

defenses in the period from 1993 to 2004. Some of the major changes in 

this era include: 

• There has been steady and significant progress in development and 

testing of theater missile systems, with relevant systems 

demonstrating improved capability. For example, the Patriot-3

TMD system is an improvement over the PAC-2 systems deployed 

in Desert Storm. Five other TMD systems are in various stages of 

research, development, testing and evaluation: THAAD, MEADS, 

ABL, and the two Navy Aegis-based systems. 

• There has been a watershed change in U.S. attitudes on national 

missile defense issues. The election of President George W. Bush 

and his NMD supporters, the termination of the ABM Treaty, and 

the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. 

homeland, along with the first deployment of NMD interceptors in 

2004, probably means national missile defense is a non-reversible 

program. 

• There has been a blurring of the distinction between NMD and 

TMD, partly due to technological changes, partly because of the

mixing of the same technologies in both, and partly because TMD 

and NMD can now use technologies and architectures previously 

limited by the ABM Treaty. 

• Spending on both TMD and NMD has increased dramatically 

under President Bush, to an estimated combined total of $10 

billion in FY 2004, by far the largest portion of the U.S. 

counterproliferation budget. 
34 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

• Despite the progress in ballistic missile defense, the United States 

is still years away from effective defenses against a robust threat in 

either national or theater defense. 

• There has been little apparent progress in developing effective 

cruise missile defenses, a serious deficiency since these weapons 

are widely available to potential enemies, and provide a less 

expensive and probably more effective means of delivering 

biological munitions than are ballistic missiles. Indeed, far poorer 

states like Iran, North Korea, China and others, can present an 

emerging threat to U.S. personnel by combining this delivery 

system with the poor nation’s most available and effective 

weapons of mass destruction.44

It is clear that more needs to be done to solve the ballistic and cruise

missile threats that are emerging in the 21st century. 

In addition to strategic missile defenses that defend the American

homeland from small-scale attacks or accidental launch, the United 

States needs theater ballistic and cruise missile defense systems that are 

deployable, readily available to regional commanders, effective, proven, 

sustainable, survivable, and flexible.45 The goal of theater missile

defense should be more than simple protection for forward-deployed 

forces. It can also serve to strengthen the resolve of friends and allies, 

deter or dissuade an adversary from going to war, or from escalating a

conflict already under way. In this regard, robust defenses can 

complement other efforts at peacekeeping that make the use of force less 

likely, including arms control and diplomacy, as well as offensive 

counterproliferation operations. 

The future of missile defense systems for the United States in this, its

latest attempt to deploy defenses, is now becoming clear. In coming years

we can expect to see the creation of a layered defensive shield that begins

with short-range, tactical defenses over our troops and allies in distant

theaters. Additional layers will include sea-based interceptors and 

airborne lasers to attack missiles in their boost phase, and ground-based 

mid-course defenses that will track, target, and engage missile payloads

during their flight. All these systems will be linked via a sophisticated 

battle management system that relies on terrestrial and space-based 

sensors. Given the political will, public support for deployment, and the 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 35

threats facing this country today, missile defenses are likely to play a 

central role in U.S. deterrence and counterproliferation policies over the 

coming decades. 
36 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 37

Notes 

1. William Perry, Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense to the President and 

the Congress, February 1993, 73. 

2. Counterproliferation Program Review Committee, Report on Activities and 

Programs for Countering Proliferation, May 1995, 27; Counterproliferation Program 

Review Committee, Report on Activities and Programs for Countering Proliferation and 

NBC Terrorism, May 1997, tables 1.2 and 5.1.

3. See, for example, the arguments made in James Lindsay and Michael O’Hanlon, 

Defending America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2001). 

4. For good short histories, see the following: Donald R. Baucom, “Ballistic Missile 

Defense: A Short History,” Missile Defense Agency, July 2000. On-line, Internet, 11

June 2004, available from www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/briefhis.html; Bradley 

Graham, “Back to the Future,” in Hit to Kill: The New Battle Over Shielding American

From Missile Attack (New York: Public Affairs Publishing, 2001); historical pages on the 

web site of the Federation of American Scientists at www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program; 

John E. Pike, Bruce G. Blair, and Stephen I. Schwartz, “Defending Against the Bomb,”

in Atomic Audit (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 269-326; Kerry 

M. Kartchner, “The Future of the Offense-Defense Relationship,” in Jeffrey A. Larsen,

ed., Arms Control: Cooperative Defense in a Changing Environment (Boulder, CO:

Lynne Rienner Press, 2002); Michael Krepon, Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile

Defense, and the Nuclear Future (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003);

Douglas C. Waller, “The Strategic Defense Initiative and Arms Control,” in Richard

Dean Burns, ed., Encyclopedia of Arms Control and Disarmament, Volume 2 (New

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993); “Strategic Defensive Arms Control: The ABM 

Treaty and Star Wars,” in Arms Control and National Security: An Introduction 

(Washington, DC: Arms Control Association, 1989), 67-83; and Ivo Daalder,

“Deployment Criteria for Strategic Defences,” in Strategic Defences in the 1990s (New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 5-23. 

5. The action-reaction dynamic was put forth in a famous speech by Secretary of

Defense Robert McNamara in San Francisco, CA, in September 1967, during which he

condemned the idea of strategic defenses because of their likely negative influence on 

international stability, and then with convoluted logic announced the deployment of

Sentinel. See Department of State, Bulletin, 9 October 1967, 449, and Robert S. 

McNamara, The Essence of Security: Reflections in Office (New York: Harper & Row,

1968), 65. 

6. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Documents in Disarmament 1983

(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1986), 199-200. 
38 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

7. Kerry M. Kartchner, Negotiating START: Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and

the Quest for Stability, (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1992), 114-16, 241-43. 

8. Highlights of Nitze’s 1985 speech to the Philadelphia World Affairs Council

found in Krepon, 94. 

9. Donald R. Baucom, “Ballistic Missile Defense: A Brief History,” Office of the 

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics website. On-line, 

Internet, 14 April 2004, available from http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/

briefhis.html. 

10. Most of these are anti-ship missiles (of 130 varieties, produced by 17 nations);

some of these can be modified into land-attack variants. Thirteen nations have or are 

pursuing land-attack cruise missile capabilities. Barry Schneider, Future War and 

Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC Proliferation Threats (Westport,

CT: Praeger, 1999), 119. See also Dennis M. Gormley, “UAVs and Cruise Missiles as

Possible Terrorist Weapons,” in James Clay Moltz, ed., New Challenges in Missile 

Proliferation, Missile Defense, and Space Security, Occasional Paper 12 (Monterey, CA:

Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, July

2003), 3-9. 

11. “Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015,

An Unclassified Summary of a National Intelligence Estimate,” National Intelligence 

Council, December 2001. On-line, Internet, 5 January 04, available from www.odci.gov/ 

nic/other_missile threat2001.html. 

12. The National Intelligence Council has contained this statement in each annual

report on ballistic missile proliferation since 1999. 

13. Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: National Air

and Space Intelligence Center, August 2003), 22. 

14. For a thorough discussion of the cruise missile threat, with special reference to

their application as potential delivery vehicles for biological weapons, see See Rex R. 

Kiziah, “Assessment of the Emerging Biocruise Threat,” Future Warfare Series No. 6

(Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College, August 2000);

and, Michael E. Dickey, “Biocruise: A Contemporary Threat,” Future Warfare Series No. 

7 (Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College, September 

2000). 

15. Robert D. Walpole, National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear

Programs, “Statement for the Record to the Senate Subcommittee on International

Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United

States,” 9 February 2000. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from www.cia.gov/ 

cia/public_affairs/speeches/2000/nio_speech_020900.html. 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 39

16. “Excerpts from the DCI National Intelligence Estimate: President’s Summary,” 

The Brookings Institution. On-line, Internet, 2 February 2004, available from 

www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/press/companion/defendingamerica/appendix_b.htm. 

17. The unclassified version of the Gates Panel report is available at Federation of

American Scientists website, 23 December 1996. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, 

available from www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/oca961908.htm.

18. This conclusion was subsequently misinterpreted to imply that such a threat

would materialize within five years of the Commission’s report – that is, by 2003 – and,

when such a threat did not materialize by that date, the Rumsfeld Commission was 

criticized on this basis. But that is an inaccurate reading of the report’s conclusion. The 

report did not identify any specific date, but simply predicted the amount of time needed

to produce a long-range missile should such a country make a decision to do so. 

19. The unclassified Executive Summary of the Rumsfeld Commission Report is

available at Federation of American Scientists website. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, 

available from www.fas.org/irp/threat/bm-threat.htm. 

20. Ibid.

21. In a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, National

Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, Robert D. Walpole (senior 

official in charge of producing the missile threat NIEs) said: “Although the launch of the 

Taepo Dong 1 as a missile was expected for some time, its use as a space launch vehicle 

with a third stage was not.” Central Intelligence Agency website. On-line, Internet, 5

January 2004, available from www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/1998/walpole_

speech_091798.html, 6.

22. Walpole, “Statement for the Record to the Senate Subcommittee on 

International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, on the Ballistic Missile Threat

to the United States.” 

23. The official unclassified summary is available at Director of Central Intelligence 

website. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from www.odci.gov/nic/

other_missilethreat2001.html. 

24. Ibid. 

25. “Excerpts from the DCI National Intelligence Estimate: President’s Summary,” 

The Brookings Institution. On-line, Internet, 2 February 2004, available from 

www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/press/companion/defendingamerica/appendix_b.htm.

26. The specifics regarding individual weapons systems in this section comes from

multiple sources, among them the following: Wade Boese, “Missile Defense, Post-ABM
40 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses

Treaty: No System, No Arms Race,” and “Factfile: U.S. Missile Defense Programs at a

Glance,” both in Arms Control Today, June 2003, 20-28; Theresa Hitchens, “Technical

Hurdles in U.S. Missile Defense Agency Programs,” in Moltz, 10-17; the U.S. Missile 

Defense Agency website. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from

www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html (see especially their series of short MDA InDepth fact sheets, published in July 2003, including “Ballistic Missile Threat Challenge” 

and The Ballistic Missile Defense System”); and the website of the Federation of

American Scientists. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from www.fas.org.

27. Krepon, 128. 

28. A good overview of theater missile defense can be found in Barry Schneider, 

“Theater Missile Defenses: Key to Future Operations,” in his Future War and 

Counterproliferation: US Military Responses to NBC Proliferation Threats (Westport, 

CT: Praeger, 1999), 117-145. 

29. This debate is best chronicled in Theodore A. Postol, “Lessons of the Gulf War

Experience with Patriot,” International Security, 16, 3 (Winter 1991/92), 119-71; and 

“Correspondence: Patriot Experience in the Gulf War,” International Security, 17, 1 

(Summer 1992), 199-240; See also Steven A. Hildreth, “Evaluation of U.S. Army

Assessment of Patriot Anti-tactical Missile Effectiveness in the War Against Iraq,” 

Congressional Research Service, 7 April 1992. Ironically, it was the so-called “arms

control community” in the United States, whose members–such as Theodore Postol–were

most critical of its failings as an anti-missile defense after the Gulf War, that lobbied to

have Patriot’s anti-missile defense characteristics “dumbed down” during its 

development period in the 1980s for fear of violating the ABM Treaty.

30. David E. Mosher, “The Budget Politics of Missile Defense,” in Moltz, 19. 

31. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by the President on

National Missile Defense,” Gaston Hall, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 1

September 2000. 

32. “Remarks by the President to Students and Faculty at National Defense 

University,” The White House website, 1 May 2001. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004,

available from www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2001/05/20010501-10.html. 

33. For a good discussion of this timeline and the associated domestic pressures for

an early decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, see Graham, Hit-to-Kill, 73-100. 

34. “President Discusses National Missile Defense,” The White House website, 12 

December 2001. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from www.whitehouse.gov/ 

news/releases/2001/12/20011213-4.html. 
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 41

35. “President Announces Progress in Missile Defense Capabilities,” The White 

House website, 17 December 2002. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from 

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20021217.html. 

36. “Missile Defense Operations Announcement,” U.S. Department of Defense

News Release, December 17, 2002. On-line, Internet, 5 January 2004, available from 

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2002/b12172002_bt642-02.html. 

37. Rumsfeld quoted in Philip Coyle, “Rhetoric or Reality? Missile Defense Under 

Bush,” Arms Control Today, May 2002, 3.

38. Bradley Graham, “U.S. Missile Defense Set to Get Early Start,” Washington

Post, 2 February 2004, A10. 

39. This issue is addressed, for example, by Lindsay and O’Hanlon in Defending

America, 7-16. 

40. “National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (H.R. 4 ENR),” reprinted in James J. 

Wirtz and Jeffrey A. Larsen, eds. Rockets’ Red Glare: Missile Defenses and the Future of 

World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 324-325. 

41. See Mosher, 20-21 in Moltz. 

42. For one example of this argument, see Philip E. Coyle, “Is Missile Defense on

Target?” Arms Control Today, October 2003, 7-14. 

43. Mosher, 20 in Moltz. 

44. Kiziah, “Assessment of the Emerging Biocruise Threat,” and Dickey,

“Biocruise: A Contemporary Threat.” 

45. For more on TMD requirements, see Schneider, 134. 
42 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses
Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses . . . 43

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

The USAF Counterproliferation Center was established in 1999 to provide 

education and research to the present and future leaders of the USAF, to assist them in 

their activities to counter the threats posed by adversaries equipped with weapons of mass 

destruction 

Barry R. Schneider, Director 

USAF Counterproliferation Center 

325 Chennault Circle

Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427 

Email: Barry.Schneider@maxwell.af.mil

Jo Ann Eddy, Associate Editor 

The Counterproliferation Papers 

Email: JoAnn.Eddy@maxwell.af.mil

(334) 953-7538 (DSN 493-7538)
44 . . . Emerging Missile Challenges and Improving Active Defenses