Do We Still Need Ballistic Missiles?
Abstract
Ballistic missiles have become synonymous with America's nuclear deterrent. Always ready at high reliability to provide widespread devastation to any attacker in less than an hour after launch, these weapons presented the ultimate deterrence against the nightmare scenario of the Cold War: a Soviet bolt-out-of-the-blue attack. Why would anyone question whether we should continue to maintain and operate ballistic missiles well into the future? But we no longer expect the kind of attack that ballistic missiles were designed to counter. The unclassified summary of the recent Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) says that the United States will "no longer plan, size or sustain its forces as though Russia presented merely a smaller version of the threat posed by the former Soviet Union".
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA441621
Entities
People
- Roy C. Pettis Jr.
Organizations
- National War College