Defending America: A Plan to Meet the Urgent Missile Threat

The danger to the American people from ballistic missiles armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological warheads continues to grow as these deadly weapons proliferate around the world. Nevertheless, the United States continues to delay the deployment of anti-ballistic missile protection, even though such systems are well within its technological grasp. As this report demonstrates, an affordable and effective missile defense system could become operational within four years and cost less than $8 billion (or only about 1.5 percent of the annual defense budget).