Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 12: Missile Defense

AGA 12.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2015, 15:00–16:00, EMH 225

Ten year anniversary: U.S. Strategic Missile Defense at a Crossroads — •Laura Grego — Union of Concerned Scientists

After a decade of effort, the building blocks of the primary U.S. strategic missile defense system, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), are now essentially in place. However, development of the GMD, which is designed to defend against a small attack by unsophisticated long-range ballistic missiles, has been fraught with failure and poor oversight and it will take years and billions of dollars more to establish even this limited capability.

At the same time, continued investment in this approach can interfere with the creative thinking, motivation, and strategic relationships needed to reduce the nuclear threat. The U.S. must make informed decisions about what is worth keeping and what is counterproductive. This talk will give a technical overview of the GMD system and provide an up-to-date assessment of its current capabilities and future prospects, as well as discuss Chinese and Russian concerns and what might be done to address them.