With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the East-West divide, the arms control community began to direct broader attention to issues such as missiles and small arms that for a long time had been overshadowed by the debate on nuclear disarmament. In addition, the use of ballistic missiles by Iraq against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War accelerated the focus of international attention and debate on the issue of missile proliferation in many parts of the world.

Several distinct perspectives have influenced the debate on missile proliferation during the past decade. First, the...

Based on prior analysis of the drivers behind missile proliferation, this paper will examine some of the responses to that proliferation. Canada is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and this discussion will begin from an MTCR perspective, but will also go beyond that framework to discuss broader multilateral responses to the problem. In doing so, it will take a broad-brush, scene-setting approach starting with the innermost core of control activity and working out, layer by layer, from the specific to the general.

Since its first Plenary in September 1988, the MTCR has enjoyed success in the...

The purpose of this paper is to provide factual background on the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and particularly the singular role that the United States has played in establishing and maintaining the MTCR as the keystone of international efforts to impede missile proliferation. It does not seek to engage in normative debate on the merits of the supply-side approach to nonproliferation generally, or the MTCR specifically, relative to other antiproliferation strategies or tools. It therefore does not address the question of whether a supply-side instrument such as the MTCR requires some type of complementary demand-side treaty-norm in order to...

In 1998, missile launches by North Korea and Iran dramatically demonstrated the inadequacy of the international missile non-proliferation regime. This is currently based on the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), established in 1987 by the seven largest industrially developed nations. The MTCR is a supply side informal export control regime, that sets guidelines which member states can use to harmonize their national export control legislation with that of other participants in the Regime. The MTCR also limits missile developments by some member states. U.S. policy has sought to ensure that no state beyond the original seven members, other than Russia...

At the conclusion of the Helsinki Plenary of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) on October 13 2000, a press release issued by the Finnish Government on the Regime’s behalf included the following paragraph:

The partners continued their deliberations started in the previous Plenary in 1999 on a set of principles, commitments, confidencebuilding measures and incentives that could constitute a code of conduct against missile proliferation. They decided to approach countries outside the MTCR in order to engage them in a broader common effort to agree a multilateral instrument open to all States.

Although succinct in wording, these two sentences...

My paper is partly a factual description of BMD technologies and partly an assessment of the pros and cons of the different techniques being developed for defeating ballistic missiles in flight. It certainly is not comprehensive, nor does it address the many other ways of dealing with the threat of ballistic missile proliferation. It does not consider the credibility of the ballistic missile threat to the West from the so-called “states of concern”. It sticks to the problem of how to prevent a missile, once it has been launched, from completing its mission.

The technology for ballistic missile defence in...

Missile defenses (MD) offer an interesting example of a technological debate with major political implications, which, in many ways, recalls the “old days” of Cold War nuclear theology. Additionally, when the drivers of a strategic decision are in theory primarily political, we face technological choices with tremendous political and international implications.

The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the various missile defense technologies, and their maturity, feasibility, efficiency or cost. The paper assumes that all known technological options are already available or could be available in the forthcoming decades. It tries to assess these possible technologies only through...

The debate over National Missile Defense (NMD) went quiet on September 1, 2000, when President Clinton announced that he would delay deployment of NMD in favor of further research and testing. With the election of George W. Bush, the debate over missile defense is about to begin again in earnest. The outcome has important implications for U.S. security, strategic stability, and global non-proliferation efforts.

Given the stakes, it is vitally important to understand the political dynamics behind American missile defense decisions. This is particularly the case given the close partisan divisions in the U.S. government. Consider that President Bush enters...

When United States President George W. Bush outlined his grandiose, but short on details, missile defence plan on 1 May 2001, the impact on South Asia was immediate.1 China warned that the plan, and the implicit threat that it posed to the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT), would break the current nuclear balance and stability and would impede international arms control and nonproliferation. 2 Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf, speaking in the presence of the visiting Chinese Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, expressed concern that ballistic missile defence could “jeopardise strategic stability, trigger a new arms race and undermine international efforts aimed...

In an article in the previous paper in this joint series1, the author described the basic factors affecting the thinking of military experts on the issue of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) in Japan, China, Taiwan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Republic of Korea (ROK). The article gave an overview of the regional implications of ballistic missile proliferation and BMD at the end of the Clinton presidency.

Today, a new Republican administration has come to power, and with it, the possibility of an expanded BMD, in comparison to a limited BMD as proposed by President Clinton. Expectations for and...

When President Clinton announced that he was putting off deployment of his planned NMD system pending further tests, the decision was greeted with undisguised relief by European NATO partners, who were quick to praise the decision as wise, prudent, and sensitive to allied opinion.1 It had been no secret that the allies regarded the NMD plan as technologically, strategically and politically suspect, regardless of the apparent U.S. determination to pursue it and the occasional vague hints from Washington that an extension of the defence to Europe might be on the cards.2 More recently, there have been indications that such schemes...

While the rest of the world debates the possibility of missile defense, the Middle East already is in the midst of a transition from security based on conventional capabilities and WMD deterrents. For over a decade the region has witnessed the steady accumulation of consistently more capable missile defenses. This process took an important step forward in March of last year when the Israeli Arrow system was declared operational. Other systems being created in the United States and Russia seem likely to enter the Middle East balance within the next few years as well.

As defenses become more capable, the...

An important yet inadequately studied element in the current international debate about missile proliferation, missile defenses, and options for multilateral arms control is the nexus provided by outer space. The shared environment of space — particularly low-Earth orbit —is a key meeting point for offensive and defensive activities due to unavoidable conditions linked to the physics of ballistic missiles: 1) even short-range ballistic missiles must travel through space in order to reach their targets on Earth; 2) early warning satellites, missile defense sensors, and tracking radars must be deployed in space in order to detect missile launches, determine missile speed...