An Introduction to Missile Defence
The United States is leading the world in missile defence development.
All other Missile Defence systems under development are in
collaboration with the United States. It is the US system that will
have the global reach and it's the US system that will cause by far the
most instability. Yorkshire CND campaigns against all missile defence
systems by any country. However, currently, the US system and its
control of development of all other systems, is the biggest threat. It
is likely to remain so for the forseeable future. As such, many of the
examples taken and explanations of the system refer to the US system.
“If you look at world history, ever since men began waging war, you
will see that there's a permanent race between sword and shield. The
sword always wins. The more improvements that are made to the shield,
the more improvements are made to the sword.”
(French President Jaques Chirac, New York Times on December 17 2000)
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How is it Meant to Work?
An incoming missile goes through
three main phases:
Boost phase when it
is firing up in to the atmosphere and its boosters are burning. This lasts
from 1 - 5 minutes
Mid-course phase when
the missile is flying outside the atmosphere through space. During this
phase decoys and balloons may be deployed to confuse the Missile Defence
system and make it hard to recognise the real missiles. This lasts from
10 - 15 minutes
Terminal phase when
the missile re-enters the atmosphere and begins its descent towards its
target This lasts for about 1 minute
A Missile Defence system on
the scale that the US is trying to develop will use a variety of systems
to try to intercept the incoming missiles. It will however, only be able
to intercept a small number of missiles - not the hundreds that Reagan
initially envisaged.
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Nuclear Proliferation
A shield that can be used for
defence is a shield that can also be used for attack. Many countries are
aware that an effective Missile Defence shield would give the United States
"first strike ability". In other words, the United States would be able
to strike a country, knock out the majority of its Inter-Continental Ballistic
Missiles (ICBMs) and then use the Missile Defence shield to mop up the
limited response that the attacked country could muster with what's left.
This is an ability to strike a country first and defend against retaliation,
and gives the owner of that ability a huge military advantage. Lt Col
Robert Bowman - US Air Force Director - called Missile Defence "The Missing
Link to a first Strike".
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Campaigns 
