The US Anti-Missile Potential in Asia-Pacific

Abstract

The USA considers missile potentials of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as the main sources of threats to their national security. In the early 2000s following the withdrawal from the Soviet-American ABM Treaty the US began to deploy a global ballistic missile defense system to protect their “homeland, US forces abroad and its allies” from potential and real threats. The set of basic elements of a multi-layer ballistic missile defense is generally the same, its architecture is always adapted to the local conditions of the regions of deployment and specific tasks. Their common designation is the ability to work as subsystems within an integrated, global in scope antiballistic missile defense system controlled by the United States. In the Asia-Pacific region, the United States is actively engaging its regional allies Australia, South Korea and Japan in a joint effort to build-up ABM capabilities while simultaneously increasing its military-strategic presence in the region. Moscow strongly opposes the program considering it as potential threat to the effectiveness of the Russian strategic nuclear forces and undermining strategic stability and considers emergence the ballistic missile subsystems in Europe and the Asian-Pacific Region as a direct threat to its security. US ABM policy provokes the accelerated development by China and the DPRK of ballistic missile delivery systems, encourages Russia to create new weapon systems that are guaranteed to be able to overcome any existing and future missile defense.

Keywords

• national missile defense
• asian-pacific region
• components and means of ballistic missile defense
• united states
• russia
• china
• north korea
• early warning radars and sensors
• nuclear missile potential
• strategic stability