Missile defense has become an increasingly important focus of security policy around the world. On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's provocative missile tests have led Seoul to move toward deploying U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile batteries, despite opposition from China. Proponents argue that THAAD deployment in South Korea is necessary to meet the evolving challenges posed by the North’s arsenal of short- and medium-range missiles. U.S. forces in South Korea face limits with Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) batteries, which only target missiles during their final descent and lack THAAD’s ability to intercept missiles at a higher altitude. Critics, on the other hand, argue that the benefits of THAAD are limited and that it would be unable to fend off a massive attack from the North. The announcement from the State Department on the new policy cited five “primary objectives” for the export of unmanned aerial vehicles. “Increased trade opportunities for U.S. companies” was at the top of the list. The announcement also included strengthening allies’ capacity, improving bilateral relationships, preserving U.S. military advantages, and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction delivery systems. The United States aims to achieve all that through a policy that loosens the restrictions on the exports of armed drones to its allies.
While no ballistic missile defense, or BMD, architecture provides a foolproof defense, the biggest obstacle to deploying THAAD batteries in South Korea had long been Chinese opposition. The strength of Chinese objections to THAAD in South Korea is surprising, when measured against the system’s technical capabilities. What is clearer is that many in China understand American military alliances in East Asia as fundamentally oriented toward the encirclement and containment of China. The growing entrenchment of the U.S. military in locations progressively closer to Chinese territory is therefore a source of concern. These fears of encirclement stem from the enduring mistrust between Beijing and Washington, and further feed that mistrust.
Far from the Korean peninsula, the U.S. has also pushed its Persian Gulf partners to deploy an integrated missile defense system to counter the ballistic missile capabilities of Iran, as well as non-state terrorist organizations. Cooperative and integrated THAAD and Patriot missile defenses would be more effective than discrete individual systems in each country, allowing Gulf states to share sensors and avert inadequate coverage against ballistic missiles. However many of the impediments to past Gulf state missile defense cooperation remain potent, and previous efforts toward this end have yielded minimal progress.
Last March, during his annual speech to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin made headlines around the world when he unveiled a raft of new and exotic military weapons systems that were in development, and in some cases ready to be deployed. Putin’s inventory included new maneuverable re-entry vehicles that will, in theory, be fitted onto Russian ballistic missiles to help them overwhelm American missile defenses, and a nuclear-powered cruise missile apparently able to fly for thousands of miles just feet above the surface of the earth that would also render U.S. missile defenses useless. Russia has long had an obsession with ballistic missile defense, from former President Ronald Reagan’s futuristic Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s to then-President George W. Bush’s decision to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, when Putin was serving his first term as president. Put simply, the Russian leadership has never been able to shift the perception that American ballistic missile plans are aimed squarely at them and at achieving a lasting strategic advantage.