Int'l Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation

Russia recently stopped providing advance notice of its ballistic missile launches to fellow members of a voluntary missile transparency and restraint regime. Other participants, including the United States, also are not fully implementing their commitments. (Continue)

A new arrangement to prevent the spread of ballistic missiles was launched in The Hague November 25-26 when 93 countries, including the United States, signed the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (ICOC). It is the most wide-ranging international agreement on missile proliferation signed to date. (Continue)

From the earliest days of its development, the ballistic missile has been ascribed an almost supernatural power to generate terror. As the first V-2s began to fall on London in 1944, British scientist R. V. Jones noted that British politicians were being “carried away with the threat: for some reason they seemed far more frightened by one ton of explosive delivered by rocket than by five tons delivered by aircraft.” Jones’ conclusion—“No weapon yet produced has a comparable romantic appeal”—is as resonant today as it was then. (Continue)