Shield of Dreams : Missile Defenses and Nuclear Strategy

Examines the background and current status of American efforts to create missile defenses.

Nuclear weapons caused a revolution in warfare; ballistic missiles of intercontinental range caused another.

Nuclear weapons combined with ballistic missiles dominated the military-technical competition of the Cold War.

Eventually the Americans and Soviets deployed nuclear ballistic missile and bomber forces so large and diverse that they enforced a stalemate, commonly referred to as deterrence by "mutual vulnerability" or "mutual assured destruction." Despite considerable interest in defense against ballistic missiles by Cold War U.S. and Soviet scientists and military planners, no feasible defenses could overturn mutual deterrence in the twentieth century.

The end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union created a new political and military-technical climate and new U.S. threat perceptions. Prestigious study groups outside the government encouraged renewed interest in ballistic missile defenses in the form of limited defenses against rogue state attacks or accidental/inadvertent nuclear launches. The Clinton administration and Congress agreed in 1999 on the deployment of missile defenses as soon as it became technically feasible to do so.

The George W. Bush administration committed itself to begin deployment of national missile defenses against rogue or accidental attacks by 2005, if technically feasible.

Russian reactions to U.S. missile defense plans were predictably hostile. However, the Putin administration was sufficiently practical to recognize that it could not veto American defense plans; instead, Russia indicated a willingness to bargain for trade-offs over U.S. nuclear missile defenses. Scholars and students in defense, security, and foreign policy studies will find this study of particular interest.