Why the United States Must Deploy a National Missile Defense

Abstract

General Horner made this comment over five years ago when, as the Joint Forces Air Component Commander for Desert Storm, he was confronted with the new terror weapon of choice for Third World despots-- the Scud missile. In fact, Iraq's launching of nearly 90 Scud missiles and Saudi Arabia and Israel, accounted for 25 percent of US casualties, and almost caused Israel to enter the war, thereby threatening the fragile allied coalition. (Joseph and Payne). It also caused the intelligence community to reevaluate the threat posed by ballistic missiles and their potential nuclear, biological, and chemical payloads. This reexamination was the catalyst for President Bush's redirection&on of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which he announced during his State of the Union address to the American public. In January 1991 President Bush said, "Looking forward, I have directed that the SDI program be refocused on providing protection from limited ballistic missile ties, whatever their source. Let us pursue an SDI program that can deal with any world threat to the United States, to our forces overseas, and to our friends and allies." (Cooper and Hadley).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA442062

Entities

People

  • Peter F. Hoene

Organizations

  • National War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arms Control
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Boost Phase
  • Chemical Weapons
  • Cold War
  • Command And Control
  • Directed Energy Weapons
  • Ground Based
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Reconnaissance Satellites
  • Space Based
  • Strategic Defense Initiative
  • Treaties
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Missile Defense Systems.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.
  • Strategic Security Studies