GPF Team

Sept. 15, 2017 Xander Snyder and Antonia Colibasanu discuss the countries involved in the Intermarium, their motivations and why it matters. Sign up here for free updates on topics like this.

Sept. 15, 2017 The prospect that North Korea could fire missiles at its enemies has, perhaps unsurprisingly, shone a spotlight on the ways in which potential targets could defend themselves. And when it comes to missiles, some say the best defense is more missiles. Ballistic missile defense indeed seems like a natural antidote, and though these systems have been in use for some time – and some have even intercepted their targets – the security they promise could hardly be considered absolute.

The U.S. began to pour money into missile defense systems as soon as it showed the destructive power of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II. BMD became a fixture of U.S. defense planning throughout the Cold War, with investment peaking under President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative during the mid-1980s. Eventually, the amount of money needed to counter advanced arsenals from countries like Russia and China was deemed unsustainable. So after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the focus on missile defense shifted to emerging, more limited threats from so-called rogue states like Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Since 2002, the U.S. has spent between $8 billion and $10 billion annually on research, testing and deployment of BMD systems – almost all of it under the watchful eye of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

Sept. 5, 2017 Lost in most reporting is how a nuclear North Korea would reshape the balance of power in the region. (Updated.)

South Korean aid to the North, Chinese investment abroad, Qatar’s foreign exchanges