The U.S. Should Be Realistic About Missile Defense
Spending more on unproven technologies is the wrong way to protect against emerging threats.
Shooting down missiles is a lot harder than it looks.
Photograph: Getty Images North America
China’s reported test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon has raised alarm about the vulnerability of the U.S. to missile attacks by nuclear-armed adversaries. The U.S. should be vigilant about emerging threats, but pouring more money into unproven missile-defense technologies isn’t the answer. America’s aim should be to keep its missile-defense capabilities aligned with both fiscal reality and the country’s strategic interests.
Since the early 2000s, America’s missile-defense program has been geared to defend both the U.S. homeland and some overseas military assets from limited missile strikes. That has meant building defenses strong enough to stop an attack of the kind North Korea might contemplate, but not so large that they’d be both unaffordable and destabilizing. By making Russia and China less certain of the effectiveness of their respective arsenals, an expansive missile defense system could cause the U.S.’s competitors to pursue more nuclear weapons — potentially setting off an arms race that would drain U.S. resources and make the world more dangerous.