Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense

Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309216109
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives set forth to provide an assessment of the feasibility, practicality, and affordability of U.S. boost-phase missile defense compared with that of the U.S. non-boost missile defense when countering short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats from rogue states to deployed forces of the United States and its allies and defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack. To provide a context for this analysis of present and proposed U.S. boost-phase and non-boost missile defense concepts and systems, the committee considered the following to be the missions for ballistic missile defense (BMD): protecting of the U.S. homeland against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD); or conventional ballistic missile attacks; protection of U.S. forces, including military bases, logistics, command and control facilities, and deployed forces, including military bases, logistics, and command and control facilities. They also considered deployed forces themselves in theaters of operation against ballistic missile attacks armed with WMD or conventional munitions, and protection of U.S. allies, partners, and host nations against ballistic-missile-delivered WMD and conventional weapons. Consistent with U.S. policy and the congressional tasking, the committee conducted its analysis on the basis that it is not a mission of U.S. BMD systems to defend against large-scale deliberate nuclear attacks by Russia or China. Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives suggests that great care should be taken by the U.S. in ensuring that negotiations on space agreements not adversely impact missile defense effectiveness. This report also explains in further detail the findings of the committee, makes recommendations, and sets guidelines for the future of ballistic missile defense research.

Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense

Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309216109
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book

Book Description
The Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives set forth to provide an assessment of the feasibility, practicality, and affordability of U.S. boost-phase missile defense compared with that of the U.S. non-boost missile defense when countering short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats from rogue states to deployed forces of the United States and its allies and defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack. To provide a context for this analysis of present and proposed U.S. boost-phase and non-boost missile defense concepts and systems, the committee considered the following to be the missions for ballistic missile defense (BMD): protecting of the U.S. homeland against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD); or conventional ballistic missile attacks; protection of U.S. forces, including military bases, logistics, command and control facilities, and deployed forces, including military bases, logistics, and command and control facilities. They also considered deployed forces themselves in theaters of operation against ballistic missile attacks armed with WMD or conventional munitions, and protection of U.S. allies, partners, and host nations against ballistic-missile-delivered WMD and conventional weapons. Consistent with U.S. policy and the congressional tasking, the committee conducted its analysis on the basis that it is not a mission of U.S. BMD systems to defend against large-scale deliberate nuclear attacks by Russia or China. Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives suggests that great care should be taken by the U.S. in ensuring that negotiations on space agreements not adversely impact missile defense effectiveness. This report also explains in further detail the findings of the committee, makes recommendations, and sets guidelines for the future of ballistic missile defense research.

Ballistic Missile Defense

Ballistic Missile Defense PDF Author: Ashton B. Carter
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 081570576X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
Defense against nuclear attack—so natural and seemingly so compelling a goal—has provoked debate for at least twenty years. Ballistic missle defense systems, formerly called antiballistic missile systems, offer the prospect of remedying both superpowers' alarming vulnerability to nuclear weapons by technological rather than political means. But whether ballistic missile defenses can be made to work and whether it is wise to build them remain controversial. The U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 restricts testing and deployment of ballistic missile defenses but has not prohibited more than a decade of research and development on both sides. As exotic new proposals are put forward for space-based directed-energy systems, questions about the effectiveness and wisdom of missile defense have again become central to the national debate on defense policy. This study, jointly sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines the strategic, technological, and political issues raised by ballistic missile defense. Eight contributors take an analytical approach to their areas of expertise, which include the relationship of missile defense to nuclear strategy, the nature and potential applications of current and future technologies, the views on missile defense in the Soviet Union and among the smaller nuclear powers, the meaning of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty for today's technology, and the present role and historical legacy of ballistic missile defense in the context of East-West relations. The volume editors give a comprehensive introduction to this wide range of subjects and an assessment of future prospects. In the final chapter, nine knowledgeable observers offer their varied personal views on the ballistic missile defense question.

Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies

Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428923322
Category : Ballistic missile defenses
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description


Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program

Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program PDF Author: Ronald O'Rourke
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437932770
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
The Aegis BMD program gives Navy Aegis cruisers and destroyers a capability for conducting BMD operations. Under current plans, the number of BMD-capable Navy Aegis ships is scheduled to grow from 20 at the end of FY 2010 to 38 at the end of FY 2015. Contents of this report: (1) Intro.; (2) Background: Planned Quantities of Ships, Ashore Sites, and Interceptor Missiles; Aegis BMD Flight Tests; Allied Participation and Interest in Aegis BMD Program; (3) Issues for Congress: Demands for BMD-Capable Aegis Ships; Demands for Aegis Ships in General; Numbers of SM-3 Interceptors; SM-2 Block IV Capability for 4.0.1 and Higher Versions; (4) Legislative Activity for FY 2011. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand publication.

Arguments that Count

Arguments that Count PDF Author: Rebecca Slayton
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262549573
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
How differing assessments of risk by physicists and computer scientists have influenced public debate over nuclear defense. In a rapidly changing world, we rely upon experts to assess the promise and risks of new technology. But how do these experts make sense of a highly uncertain future? In Arguments that Count, Rebecca Slayton offers an important new perspective. Drawing on new historical documents and interviews as well as perspectives in science and technology studies, she provides an original account of how scientists came to terms with the unprecedented threat of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). She compares how two different professional communities—physicists and computer scientists—constructed arguments about the risks of missile defense, and how these arguments changed over time. Slayton shows that our understanding of technological risks is shaped by disciplinary repertoires—the codified knowledge and mathematical rules that experts use to frame new challenges. And, significantly, a new repertoire can bring long-neglected risks into clear view. In the 1950s, scientists recognized that high-speed computers would be needed to cope with the unprecedented speed of ICBMs. But the nation's elite science advisors had no way to analyze the risks of computers so used physics to assess what they could: radar and missile performance. Only decades later, after establishing computing as a science, were advisors able to analyze authoritatively the risks associated with complex software—most notably, the risk of a catastrophic failure. As we continue to confront new threats, including that of cyber attack, Slayton offers valuable insight into how different kinds of expertise can limit or expand our capacity to address novel technological risks.

Complex Air Defense

Complex Air Defense PDF Author: Tom Karako
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538140543
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
In the past five years, Russia, China, and others have accelerated their development of hypersonic missiles to threaten U.S. forces in the homeland and abroad. The current Ballistic Missile Defense System, largely equipped to contend with legacy ballistic missile threats, must be adapted to this challenge. The same characteristics that make hypersonic missiles attractive may also hold the key to defeating them. This CSIS report argues how a new hypersonic defense architecture should exploit hypersonic weapons’ unique vulnerabilities and employ new capabilities, such as a space sensor layer, to secure critical nodes. These changes are not only necessary to mitigate the hypersonic threat but to defeat an emerging generation of maneuvering missiles and aerial threats.

Missile Defense

Missile Defense PDF Author: Steven A. Hildreth
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781590339732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
The United States has pursued missile defenses since the dawn of the missile age shortly after World War II. The development and deployment of missile defenses has not only been elusive, but has proven to be one of the most divisive issues of the past generation. The Bush Administration substantially altered the debate over missile defenses. The Administration requested significant funding increases for missile defense programs, eliminated the distinction between national and theater missile defense, restructured the missile defense program to focus more directly on developing deployment options for a "layered" capability to intercept missiles aimed at U.S. territory across the whole spectrum of their flight path, adopted a new, untried development and acquisition strategy, announced U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, and is deploying an initial national missile defense capability. Critics, however, take issue with assertions that the threat is increasing, citing evidence that the number of nations seeking or possessing nuclear weapons has actually declined over the past twenty years. Moreover, they argue that the technology for effective missile defense remains immature, that deployment is provocative to allies, friends, and adversaries, and it is a budget-buster that reduces the availability of funds to modernize and operate U.S. conventional military forces. They argue especially that some major powers view U.S. missile defense as an attempt at strategic domination and that other, such as China, will expand their missile capabilities in response.

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force PDF Author: Lauren Caston
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833076264
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
The authors assess alternatives for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across a broad set of potential characteristics and situations. They use the current Minuteman III as a baseline to develop a framework to characterize alternative classes of ICBMs, assess the survivability and effectiveness of possible alternatives, and weigh those alternatives against their cost.

Seize the High Ground

Seize the High Ground PDF Author: James A. Walker
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
"[Seize the high ground is a] narrative history of the Army's aerospace experience from the 1950s to the present. The focus is on ballistic missile defense, from the early NIKE-HERCULES missile program through the SAFEGUARD acquisition site allowed by the 1972 ABM Treaty to the more advanced 'Star Wars' concepts studies toward the end of the century. [What is] covered is not only the technological response to the threat but the organizational and tactical development of the commands and units responsible for the defense mission"--CMH website.

The Continuing Quest for Missile Defense

The Continuing Quest for Missile Defense PDF Author: Peter Pella
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1681749424
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
For almost three quarters of a century, the United States has spent billions of dollars and countless person-hours in the pursuit of a national missile defense system that would protect the country from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) carrying nuclear warheads. The system currently in place consists of 44 long-range antiballistic missiles stationed in Alaska and California to protect the United States from a possible nuclear weapon carrying ICBM attack from North Korea. After all this effort, this systemis still imperfect, being successful only 10 out of 18 tests. This book will provide an historical description of past efforts in national missile defenses to understand the technical difficulties involved. It will also explain how national security concerns, the evolving international environment, and the complexities of US politics have all affected the story. The book will also describe the current systems in place to protect allies and troops in the field from the threat of shorter range missiles. Finally, the book will describe the current US vision for the future of missile defenses and provide some suggestions for alternative paths.