The advance of technologies may make defense against ballistic missiles technically and economically feasible. A national policy debate has begun on the desirability of making a transition from strategic deterence to strategic defense. The debate is at present highly confusing and unstructured, since the various arguments for and against that transition are based on differing assumptions, often tacit, about technological capabilities military doctrines, arms control agreements and national intentions of the nuclear powers. The objective of this project is to aid in clarifying that debate by: (1) compiling a wide spectrum of arguments about strategic defenses; (2) identifying the underlying assumptions on which those arguments are based by drawing on an historical analysis of key factors in past policy decisions; (3) analyzing whether and how the underlying assumptions could be validated or refuted; and (4) developing a variety of scenarios, each based on a set of mutually consistent assumptions describing; (a) the nature of international conflict under a system of strategic defense.
