Destabilizing Defense - How BMD Ensures Tension with China

Abstract

The United States Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Policy states that our BMD system is intended to defend the country against a limited ballistic missile attack by states acquiring nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in contravention of international norms and in defiance of the international community - in other words, against rogue states and actors. It explicitly states that our capabilities are not focused on China or Russia, are not intended to affect the strategic balance with them, and are not of sufficient capacity to deal with Chinese or Russian large scale attacks. Despite the pronounced intention of U.S. policy, the overmatched capability of the US BMD System against even the most inflated assessment of North Korea ballistic missile capability upsets the strategic balance and increases tensions with China, hence complicating Asian-Pacific regional stability and U.S./allied security interests there.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 17, 2015
Accession Number
ADA620282

Entities

People

  • William D. Bowman

Organizations

  • Air War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Anti-Ballistic Missiles
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Defense Systems
  • Department Of Defense
  • Detectors
  • Early Warning Systems
  • Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
  • Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Reliability
  • Rockets
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warning Systems
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Naval Mine Countermeasure Systems Development.
  • Strategic Security Studies