Does building a national missile defense mean the United States will put nuclear weapons in space?
A. No. None of the deployment plans under consideration today call for putting nuclear weapons in space. In the 1970s, the United States deployed some anti-ballistic missile interceptors with nuclear warheads. Extremely primitive by today’s standards, these weapons have long since been dismantled. In contrast, the anti-ballistic missile systems being developed today are so sophisticated that they do not require any warheads at all. A national missile defense would not require the United States to build any additional nuclear weapons. Q. Why spend money on a national missile defense when terrorists might try to sneak nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons into the United States in a suitcase? A. The possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil is no reason to leave the United States defenseless against ballistic missile attack. Opponents of national missile defense often exploit the suitcase bomb threat as a red herring. Tellingly, their concerns about terrorism seem to arise only i
