By James Jay Carafano
Dr. James Jay Carafano is the Deputy Director of The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and is Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
What’s changed in the last few years? Pretty much both political parties now agree that missile defenses are integral to America’s national security. They serve to protect and defend the homeland from the threat of ballistic missile attack. Defenses cover US deployed forces and assets overseas. They also safeguard friendly and allied nations.
There is consensus as well that there are threats worth defending against. Currently, at least 30 countries in the world have ballistic missile technologies. True, some of these nations are our friends. The mere fact, however, that ballistic programs have become so ubiquitous demonstrates that robust defenses should now also be axiomatic.
Sadly, they are not.
