" This revised and updated edition identifies the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns. Whether cautioning against the “almost neurotic pursuit of absolute security” or examining the powerful influence of religion on military buildup, Ernest J.Yanarella uncovers the deeply ingrained attitudes that will determine the future of American missile defense.

Why ABM?: Policy Issues in the Missile Defense Controversy focuses on the problems of invention and deployment of defenses against anti-ballistic missiles (ABM). The book first discusses early, present, and future missile defense systems, including the efficiency of missile defense and the use of missiles in penetration aids and tactics. The deployment of ballistic missile defense (BMD) is explained. The text takes a look at the missile defense systems of the Soviet Union and their participation in the arms race. The reactions of the Soviet Union on the use of BMD and positions of Soviets and Americans on arms race issues are underscored. The selection reviews the implications of missile defense on Europe. Concerns include arms control and the prospects of European settlement; impact on the future of NATO; and attitude toward China. The possible effects of ABM on non-proliferation are also discussed. The text also takes a look at strategic arms control and stability. This topic includes effects on diplomatic relationships and debates on the use and deployment of missiles in defense strategies. The book is a vital source of reference for readers interested in international security, particularly the use of missiles in defense systems.

This revised and updated edition identifies the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns. Whether cautioning against the "almost neurotic pursuit of absolute security" or examining the powerful influence of religion on military buildup, Ernest J. Yanarella uncovers the deeply ingrained attitudes that will determine the future of American missile defense.

The Missile Defense Controversy is the first book to cover the ballistic missile controversy from its beginnings in the interservice politics of the Eisenhower fifties to its conclusion in the post-September 11th era. Identifying the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology, Ernest J. Yanarella illustrates how pro-missile initiatives reflect America s need to seek the illusion of absolute security, an imperative that grew out of the country s largely Protestant notions about worldly evil and redemption. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns.

Why adopt a poststructural lens for the reading of the military strategy of national missile defence (NMD)? No doubt, when contemplating an attack on US territory by intercontinental ballistic missiles, consulting Michel Foucault and critical international relations theory scholars may not seem the obvious route to take. The answer to this lies in another question: why has there been so much interest and continuous investment in NMD deployment when there is such ambiguity surrounding the status of threat to which it responds, controversy over its technological feasibility and concern about its cost? Posed in this manner, the question cannot be answered on its own terms – the terms given in official accounts of NMD that justify the system’s significance on the basis of strategic feasibility studies and conventional threat predictions guided by worst-case scenarios. Instead, this book argues that the preferences leading to NMD deployment must be understood as satisfying requirements beyond strategic approaches and issues. In turning towards the interpretative modes of inquiry provided by critical social theory and poststructuralism, this book contests the conventional wisdom about NMD and suggests reading the strategy in terms of US identity. Presented as an analysis of discourses on threats to national security, around which the need for NMD deployment is predominantly framed, this book is an effort to let the two fields of critical international relations theory and US foreign policy speak directly to each other. It seeks to do so by showing how the concept of identity can be harnessed to an analysis of a contemporary military-strategic practice.