But critics say Trident is too expensive, and there have been calls to either scrap the nuclear deterrent or switch to a cheaper land-based missile system.
Second, all of the scientists and engineers who worked on the European land-based missile defense project will now scatter to the winds, some taking early retirement, some getting assigned to other projects and others perhaps going into different industries altogether.
The land-based anti-missile rocket is to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific in hopes of destroying a modified Minuteman missile fired into space 20 minutes earlier from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 4, 300 miles (6, 880 kms) away in California.
CNN: US - Critics blast U.S. anti-missile system on eve of key test
This should hold us over until we develop a thorough, sophisticated land-based antiballistic missile system.
Specifically, there has been no decision to ensure dual-capability in the next generation of tactical aircraft, and there is no planning for a next generation of a sea-based nuclear land-attack missile.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Summary of the Center for Security Policy's High-l
Turning back to China, Liberation Army Daily and the Beijing News report that China successfully carried out a land-based, mid-course missile interception test at an undisclosed location within its borders, but says the test did not target any country.
In June 1992, President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a "framework agreement" (1) in Washington that provided for the complete elimination of all multiple-warheaded land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (MIRVed ICBM) systems.
After 2015, with further development, the scheme could involve land-based versions of the SM3 missile that would, the Pentagon says, ultimately cover all of Europe by 2018.
President Obama confirmed the commitment of the United States to implement the Phased Adaptive Approach to European missile defense, including basing land-based SM-3 interceptors in Poland as part of this program in the 2018 timeframe, and expressed his gratitude for the commitment by the government of Poland to host this system.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Meets with Polish President Komorowski
But even that franchise had slowly waned as the superior flexibility and survivability of Navy ballistic missile subs called into question the future of land-based bombers and missiles in nuclear strategy.
That raises the heightened concern that, despite public U.S. proclamations that they would be hesitant to shoot down a North Korean missile launched over the ocean unless it appeared to be heading toward a known land-based target, such a shoot-down is still possible.
In 1972, the Nixon Administration gave up on the mission, signing an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow that (with subsequent modifications) limited each side to 100 land-based interceptors at a single site.
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