Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered the deployment of the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to defend Hawaii should a pending North Korean long-range missile launch pose a threat to the US. The mobile ground-based missile defense system would augment longer-range missile interceptors based in Alaska. The US has …
Current events always put policy issues in clear and distinct context, and the recent actions of North Korea and the political instability of the Iranian government make a more compelling argument than ever for strong missile defense programs. But as North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles …
Today, the House Armed Services Committee was marking up the FY 2010 budget for the Defense Department. The liveliest debate was over Congressman Turner’s (R-OH) amendment to re-insert $120 million to fund the remaining 14 ground-based interceptors. For the past several years, the plan was to have 44 interceptors dispersed …
The draft resolution on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs reportedly agreed to by the security council’s permanent five members, plus Japan and South Korea, is nothing new. In fact, it is full of references back to unenforced provisions of previous resolutions, particularly from October 2006. More than anything else, …
Consistent with the highly belligerent posture North Korea has taken in the past three weeks, and the “rapid-fire series of provocations“ it has initiated since the beginning of 2009, Pyongyang yet again chose to escalate its rhetoric, this time threatening to use its nuclear weapons in a “merciless offensive” if …
Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means…as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit… –Kim Jong Il’s government referring to its nuclear arsenal as “offensive” for the first time according to …
In yesterday’s Washington Post, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote about North Korea’s nuclear program: More emphasis would need to be given to missile defense. It would be essential to redesign the American deterrent strategy in a world of multiple nuclear powers—a challenge unprecedented in our experience. The eventual …
