Examines the cost and potential defensive capability of the proposed European ground-based midcourse defense system. Also explores alternatives.

One of the greatest threats facing the world today is the increasing proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Non-proliferation activities, to include diplomacy and arms control agreements with Russia, have been successful in reducing this threat. Despite reductions in the number of weapons deployed by the United States and the former Soviet Union, ballistic missile proliferation continues on a wide scale today and could increase as technology is transferred. This new book proposes the creation of anti-missile systems to serve as protection against long-range ballistic missile threats facing the United States and European nations.

As part of ongoing efforts to protect the United States and its allies from attack by ballistic missiles, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is working to deploy a missile defense system in Europe. As proposed, the system would be fielded by 2013 and would include interceptor missiles in silos to be built in Poland, a tracking radar in the Czech Republic, and another radar at an unspecified location near Iran. The goal of the system, according to MDA, is to "defend [U.S.] allies and deployed forces in Europe from limited Iranian longrange threats and expand protection of [the] U.S. homeland."1.

Examines the cost and potential defensive capability of the proposed European ground-based midcourse defense system. Also explores alternatives.

This report discusses how successive U.S. governments have urged the creation of an anti-missile system to protect against long-range ballistic missile threats from adversary states. The proposed U.S. system has encountered resistance in some European countries and beyond.