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Home » Subject Resources

Missile Defense

  • Russia, U.S. Working on Joint Launch Notification
    July 2, 2010

    Building on their progress on arms control and nonproliferation, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met at the White House June 24 and issued a joint statement saying the two nations would continue their efforts to share early-warning data on missile launches. That effort, first promoted a decade ago as a way to buttress Russia’s weak early-warning system, is now seen as a way to advance U.S.-Russian cooperation on ballistic missile defense.
  • A Flawed and Dangerous U.S. Missile Defense Plan
    May 5, 2010

    On September 17, 2009, the Obama administration announced that it would shelve the Bush administration’s European missile defense system and replace it with an entirely new missile defense architecture. This decision to stop the deployment of 10 interceptors in Poland and an X-band radar in the Czech Republic had two extremely positive results: it scrapped a technically flawed missile defense system that could never produce a useful level of defense for Europe, and it averted a potentially disastrous foreign policy confrontation with Russia.
  • U.S. Taps Romania for Missile Defense
    March 4, 2010

    Moving to flesh out its revamped European missile defense plan announced last September, the Obama administration confirmed in February that Romania would host the first deployment of Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) land-based interceptors in 2015 and that Poland would host the next site in 2018. Turkey and Bulgaria may play a role as well, according to administration officials, who are seeking to soothe Russian concerns by inviting Moscow to join U.S.-NATO missile defense plans.
  • U.S. Missile Defense Programs at a Glance
    January 22, 2010
    Fact Sheet, January 2009
  • Obama Shifts Gears on Missile Defense
    October 5, 2009

    The Obama administration announced Sept. 17 that it will not develop a planned missile interceptor field in Poland and radar facility in the Czech Republic, as envisioned by the Bush administration. Instead, the United States will implement a new missile defense program, designed around the Navy’s Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), to counter short- and medium-range Iranian missiles, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In announcing the change, President Barack Obama said that the new missile defense architecture in Europe “will provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies” than the Bush-era plan.
  • MEDIA ADVISORY: ACA Welcomes Shift to a More Pragmatic U.S. Missile Defense Policy
    September 17, 2009

    Experts from the independent Arms Control Association (ACA) welcomed reports that the Barack Obama administration has decided to shelve the controversial George W. Bush administration proposal to install an untested, ground-based missile interceptor system in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter an as-yet undeveloped Iranian long-range missile threat. The Obama administration has signaled it will instead pursue alternative basing modes and concentrate on better-proven missile interceptor technologies. (Continue)
  • ACA Missile Defense Briefings - Powerpoint by Philip Coyle and Remarks by Greg Thielmann
    July 28, 2009

    Panelists: Steven Hildreth, Philip E. Coyle III, and Greg Thielmann
  • MDA Tests Laser Amid Budget Cutbacks
    July 2, 2009

    The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) last month successfully tested the tracking components of the Airborne Laser (ABL) system, the agency announced June 15. The tests, which took place June 6 and June 13, mark the first time the ABL system successfully detected and tracked a missile in the boost phase. These tests come amid a series of decisions reducing or eliminating the funding for some missile defense programs. (Continue)
  • The National Missile Defense Act of 1999
    July 2, 2009

    The National Missile Defense Act of 1999 was described by its chief sponsor, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), as "the necessary first step to protecting the United States from long-range ballistic missile attack."[1] Indeed, the act constituted an important milestone on the road to U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, a step that the sponsors of the act advocated. Although the act itself neither authorized any programs nor appropriated any funds, it was misrepresented then and has been misrepresented since as proof of strong congressional support for the urgent and unqualified pursuit of strategic missile defenses. (Continue)
  • Missile Defense Programs in Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 Budgets
    June 4, 2009

    The fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense budget request, released in May, provides additional detail on the Obama administration's refocusing of U.S. missile defense efforts. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates outlined the reorientation at an April 6 press conference. (See ACT, May 2009.) The revised approach emphasizes terminal-phase missile defense programs over midcourse and boost-phase ones. The following table compares major missile defense programs in the fiscal year 2010 request with requests and appropriations from fiscal year 2009. (Continue)