The U.S. and other countries, most notably Korea's close neighbor Japan, are deeply worried by the North's long-range ballistic-missile program, which Pyongyang has put on hold but not abandoned.
The report, which was signed by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and sent to senators and U.S. representatives on defense committees, said Iran is continuing to develop other missiles that can hit Israel and Eastern Europe, including an extended-range Shabab-3 and a medium-range ballistic missile called the Ashura that can fly more than 1, 200 miles.
Under the Obama plan, dozens of Aegis vessels will eventually be upgraded to defend against the full range of ballistic threats, including intercontinental-range missiles.
More than two dozen nations either already possess long-range ballistic missiles or will soon have them.
But Britain believes Iran has also conducted at least three secret tests of medium-range ballistic missiles since October.
Both sides have short and medium-range ballistic missiles which could deliver nuclear warheads.
As U.S. intelligence revealed last week, the destructive intercept was performed by a kinetic-kill vehicle (KKV) launched onboard a medium-range ballistic missile.
Cartwright pointed to proliferation of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, noting that the country must be able to discourage adversaries from using them.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: STRATCOM: Safe, reliable deterrence critical
Similarly, the Alaska site would do nothing to alleviate the grave danger American forces overseas presently face from short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Consider for a moment, the impact on the U.S. and allied commitment to resist Iraqi aggression if Saddam Hussein had had intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.
Evolutionary sea-based defenses, an early version of which conducted a successful intercept of a short-range ballistic missile two months ago, meet both of these tests.
Suffice it to say, neither of the alternatives proposed by the Senators will offer near-term capabilities to intercept Iraqi intermediate-range ballistic missiles or similar threats from other sources.
According to this logic, since Russia faces a potentially enormous danger of attack from shorter-range ballistic missiles, it would be entitled to an enormous number of TMD systems.
These include: eight sophisticated diesel submarines, advanced SU-30 fighter aircraft, modern air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons, supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and as many as 350 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Absent Soviet agreement to such a ban (like the one that ultimately emerged in the INF Treaty with respect to medium-range ballistic missiles), any reductions agreed to in START could be readily circumvented without detection.
"But our concerns with Iran's development of space launch vehicle technologies are obviously well-known: Any space launch vehicle capable of placing an object in orbit is directly relevant to the development of long-range ballistic missiles, " she told reporters.
Substantial Foreign Interest in Defenses: It is these threats, and the advantages of space-based defenses to ameliorate them, that have caught the attention of the Western European Union, whose member countries are already exposed to short- as well as longer-range ballistic missile threats.
Even with the deep cuts the START follow-on treaty requires in U.S. strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, it may still be possible to retain a nuclear "Triad" of long-range bombers and land- and sea-launched ballistic missiles.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Obama, unilateral Denuclearizer-in-Chief
In the past week, Pakistan has test-fired two ballistic missiles and India responded by test-firing a new short-range air-defence missile.
In a report published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rubin, who has been awarded the Israel Defense Prize and oversaw the development of Israel's Arrow missile defense system, concludes that Iran today has the capacity to develop solid-fuel-based intermediate ballistic missiles with a range of 3, 600 kilometers.
The proliferation of long-range strike systems, particularly ballistic and cruise missiles, could allow an aggressor to launch a surprise mass attack on these target sets.
But even the former head of the Russian Strategic Missile Troops, noting the capabilities of a recent Iranian "space vehicle" launch, predicted that Iran would have "ballistic missiles with a range of 3, 500-4, 000 kilometers or even more, " possibly in the next few years.
Security Council last year condemned North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket, saying it violated a resolution banning ballistic missile testing.
Sea-based missile defense is vital to our overall ability to defend ourselves, but it is not a substitute for the land-based system which is designed to provide defense against longer range ballistic missiles.
In 1983, the issue was whether the NATO alliance would proceed with its agreed plan to deploy hundreds of Pershing II ballistic missiles and Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles in five Western European nations (collectively known as Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces or INF).
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