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Missile Proliferation

  • The Missile Gap Myth and Its Progeny
    Arms Control Today
    May 3, 2011

    The misperceived "missile gap" became a significant issue during the period between the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the U.S. presidential election of 1960. The story of how it arose and then quickly disappeared 50 years ago carries relevant lessons for assessing military threats today.
  • U.S. Alters Non-Nuclear Prompt-Strike Plan
    Arms Control Today
    April 4, 2011

     

    The Pentagon will continue to explore a concept called "boost-glide" for its Conventional Prompt Global Strike mission, rather than pursuing systems based on traditional ballistic missiles, a White House report says.

     
  • U.S., Allies Prod China on North Korea
    Arms Control Today
    January 10, 2011

    The United States, Japan, and South Korea called on China to place added pressure on North Korea following a series of provocative actions by Pyongyang and said six-party negotiations could not begin before the North-South relationship improved.
  • Evaluating the Latest Iranian ICBM Threat Assessment
    Issue Briefs
    May 6, 2010

    Volume 1, Number 2

    A careful examination reveals that the Pentagon's latest report on Iran's military power does not contradict recent "worst case" assessments of Iran's ICBM potential. In fact, the same exact language was used in the April 2009 "Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat" Report of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center.
  • Pakistan Raises New Issues at Stalled CD
    Arms Control Today
    March 4, 2010

    Pakistan has raised a new set of concerns in the Conference on Disarmament (CD), the UN body responsible for negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT).

    Islamabad’s objections are holding up the CD’s approval of a program of work on an FMCT and other issues.
  • Winning on Ballistic Missiles but Losing on Cruise: The Missile Proliferation Battle
    Arms Control Today
    December 4, 2009

    Because Europe and the U.S. forces based there face a near-term ballistic missile threat, President Barack Obama’s decision to abandon a Bush-era missile defense plan makes good sense. In contrast to President George W. Bush’s approach, which focused primarily on a few potential ICBMs, Obama’s is more suited to Iran’s growing arsenal of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

    The Obama decision also provides an opportunity to reflect on how the ballistic missile threat has evolved over the last 25 years. There is reason to believe that missile nonproliferation policies have contributed to preventing the flow of specialized skills and technologies that are critical to enabling the leap from medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to intercontinental ones. This success has been reinforced by U.S. ballistic missile defenses, which have kept pace with the way the ballistic missile threat from Iran and North Korea has emerged thus far.
  • ACA Experts Condemn DPRK Rocket Launch: Urge U.S. and Allied Leaders to Maintain Focus on Denuclearization Goals
    Press Room
    April 5, 2009

    Experts from the independent, nonpartisan Arms Control Association (ACA) declared that North Korea's launch of what is believed to be its long-range Taepo Dong-2 rocket satellite carrier today was a "confrontational move that undermines stability in the region and makes progress in the six-party talks on that country's denuclearization more difficult to achieve." (Continue)
  • Report Predicts Future Global Arms Trends
    Arms Control Today
    January 16, 2009

    The National Intelligence Council (NIC) released its fourth Global Trends report on Nov. 20, timed to correspond every four years to the period of transition between presidential administrations. Chaired by Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis Thomas Fingar, the NIC is within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which sits atop the sprawling U.S. intelligence community. The "Global Trends 2025" report aims to identify key strategic drivers in the global system that could shape the issues facing the new administration and to guide policymakers toward a broad view of the world. (Continue)
  • Iran Space Launch Raises Missile Concerns
    Arms Control Today
    September 2, 2008

    Iran carried out a test of a space launch vehicle Aug. 17, claiming the test was in preparation for placing an Iranian satellite in orbit. Although not believed to have been successful, the test has continued to raise concerns in the West. U.S. and European governments fear that Iran's development of rockets capable of placing satellites in orbit will improve Iran's ability to build longer-range ballistic missiles. (Continue)
  • Threat Reduction Programs Meet Benchmarks
    Arms Control Today
    June 11, 2008

    U.S. threat reduction programs in Russia registered three significant successes in April. First, the Department of Defense announced April 9 that its Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program had helped Russia completely dismantle and destroy its stockpile of SS-24 ICBMs. Later the same month, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that the U.S.-Russian Material Consolidation and Conversion (MCC) program had downblended 10 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium in its nine years of existence. Finally, with U.S. funding and support from the NNSA, Russia completed the shutdown of a reactor that produces weapons-grade plutonium in Seversk. (Continue)