Taming the Next Set of Strategic Weapons Threats

Missile defense and unmanned air vehicle related technologies, are proliferating for a variety of perfectly defensive and peaceful civilian applications. This same know-how can be used to defeat U.S. and allied air and missile defenses in new ways that are far more stressful than the existing set of ballistic missile threats. Unfortunately, the Missile Technology Control Regime is not yet optimized to cope with these challenges. Nuclear technologies have become much more difficult to control since new centrifuge uranium enrichment facilities and relatively small fuel reprocessing plants can now be built and hidden much more readily than nuclear fuel-making plants that were operating when the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the bulk of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections procedures were first devised 30 or more years ago. This volume is designed to highlight what might happen if these emerging threats go unattended and how best to mitigate them.