U.S. missile defense policy in the context of great power competition

Abstract

American missile defense in the late 1990s began to develop as a protection against the DPRK and Iran. Washington's official approach has evolved over twenty years. Currently, certain segments of the U.S. missile defense policy are officially linked with the confrontation against Russia and China. Even if the Russian or Chinese strategic nuclear forces, due to their size, will never be the main target for U.S. missile defense, the air components of the Chinese and Russian nuclear triads are already in the ‘crosshairs’ of U.S. missile defense. The overall strategy for the use of integrated air and missile defense is evolving. There are a number of features of the qualitative and quantitative development of regional missile defense systems to protect U.S. troops and their allies. The space component of missile defense, even without the creation of orbital missile defenses, is developing in a direction that can threaten strategic stability. The confrontation with North Korea and Iran because of the size of their missile arsenals makes it necessary to integrate offensive and defensive systems with each other. But it is precisely the confrontation with the Russia and China that makes the U.S. to unite offensive missiles, missile defense, air defense, and, in the long term, measures to protect their space assets through architecture of sensors of various types and battle management systems.