The Heritage Foundation:
Policymakers writing the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) are responsible for crafting new defense policies to deal with an increasingly turbulent and dangerous world.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and a bipartisan coalition of cosponsors are working to mitigate North Korea’s nuclear threat by passing the Advancing American Missile Defense Act.
Sullivan’s legislation strengthens the United States’ ballistic missile defense architecture by expanding the ground-based midcourse defense system.
While critics argue the ground-based system is weak and flawed, they are wrong. It is is the only U.S. system capable of eliminating an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during its midcourse phase of flight.
The system has recently had a successful test shooting down an ICBM-like target under demanding stress conditions, a feat once thought technologically impossible.
Flashpoints are occurring at every corner of the globe, but none as threatening as North Korea’s aggressive nuclear expansion.
North Korea actually demonstrated a capability to reach the U.S. homeland with its most recent ballistic missile test, making the need for developing the ground system ever more pressing…
