Strategic Defense and Deterrence Project
Since its inception, the Center has supported the deployment of a system to protect the U.S. against ballistic missile attack, as well as supporting the maintenance of an effective nuclear deterrent.
Ballistic Missile Defense
In the early 1990’s, the Center for Security Policy was practically alone in demanding that the U.S. free itself from the Cold War ABM Treaty. Under then chairman Douglas Feith, the Center developed the principal legal rationale for withdrawing from the treaty.
A successful launch of a ground based interceptor missile. 14 December 2005
In 2002 the Center’s years of hard work paid off when President George W. Bush formally withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and officially began deploying of a viable defense system against incoming ballistic missiles.
The Center continues to advocate for missile defense through numerous meetings with congressional and executive branch personnel, issuing reports on strategic defense, and sponsoring educational forums.
Effective Nuclear Deterrence
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LGM-118A Peacekeeper missile system being tested at the Kwajalein Atoll. The white lines are the re-entry vehicles. One Peacekeeper can hold up to ten independently tageted warheads. |
Thanks in part to the information produced and distributed by the Center and the intellectual contributions of many members of its National Security Advisory Council and its larger network of security policy practitioners (notably, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and five of others who held that post — including two previous recipients of the Center’s “Keeper of the Flame” award: Caspar Weinberger (1991) and Donald Rumsfeld (1998)), a majority of the Senate voted in 1999 not to approve ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — the first time in history any arms control agreement has been defeated in Congress.
The Center believes that U.S. national security requirements and the condition of the Nation’s aging stockpile dictate that modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is required. The following areas in which such modernization is most needed include: assuring the future effectiveness of the “Triad” of land-, sea- and bomber-based nuclear forces; enhancing the U.S. theater nuclear forces capacity; and the need for a concerted effort to recruit, train and retain the personnel needed to manage large-scale construction programs that will be essential if the Nation is to meet future plutonium “pit” manufacturing, tritium and other requirements associated with the maintenance of a safe, reliable and effective nuclear deterrent.
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