By Richard Weitz
Many nations already have, or are acquiring, short- and medium-range missiles. The United States is leading the efforts to negate such threats.
One of the interesting effects of ballistic missile defense is how it has affected relations between states. The decades of tension that have arisen between Moscow and Washington over strategic defense issue are well known. Now U.S. ballistic missile defenses (BMD) are driving China and Russia closer together.
But missile defenses can also strengthen relations between countries. For example, missile defense has become an important dimension of the revitalized Japan-U.S. security alliance. BMD has strengthened cooperation between both countries directly through their joint BMD programs, discouraged Japan from developing its own nuclear deterrent, and induced Tokyo to broaden its defense collaboration with other countries by relaxing its arms export rules. The same pattern may arise in the Middle East, where Iran’s neighbors are pondering whether missile defenses can obviate their need to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. In other cases, the BMD issue has had diverse effects. South Korea, for example, has sought to benefit from U.S. technologies without alarming China by joining the Pentagon’s wider regional efforts.
The United States finds itself at the heart of the international politics of missile defense. Its leading global role in developing and deploying BMD technologies and its worldwide network of alliances both empower and oblige the United States to defend much of the world from missile attack. These same alignments also provide the ties the Pentagon needs to construct a globally linked network of BMD sensors and facilities.
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