Asian ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction: The impact of missile defense

The paper analyses critically the threat perceptions of the West, and especially the United States, regarding ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Asian states. Reviewing Southwest, South and Northeast Asia it finds these regions to be more stable as commonly assumed and little evidence to support the assumption that the states in these regions are undeterrable. A deployment by the United States of ballistic missile defences is thus found to be both superfluous and possibly destabilising. However, a mobile boost-phase defence is found to be less potentially destabilising than other missile defence “architectures”.