Toward Missile Defenses from the Sea

researchers made significant progress toward developing naval-based theater missile defenses during the Clinton administration, the basic NMD architecture had no naval component because that administration sought actual deployments by 2005–2006. Once in office, the Bush administration was determined to accelerate progress on missile defenses, expand research and development efforts, accept a greater degree of technological risk, and redesign NMD architecture. However, no new missile defense architecture has been proposed. The clear line established in 1997 that delineated theater missile defenses and national missile defenses became blurred. The strategy opened the door to a greater seaborne contribution to defense against ICBMs, and the Navy began to analyze the possibility of this new potential. The Federal Government developed a broad array of options to exploit the progress that had been made in Navy theater programs. Then, three events occurred in December 2001 and January 2002 that further shaped the Navy program. On December 13, 2001, the Bush administration announced that the United States would withdraw from the ABM Treaty in June 2002. Despite the diplomatic drawbacks of this decision, the United States can now experiment with ship-based missile defenses that the treaty constrained. When the treaty expires in June, the Pentagon will test the ability of the Navy’s Aegis radar to track both interceptor and target missiles. The decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty also removes constraints from the development of naval systems designed to be effective against shorter-range ballistic missiles. Overview