This hard-hitting analysis of the U.S. missile defense program explains the system's limitations and argues that it is not nearly as effective as Americans have been led to believe.

Missile defense has been trumpeted as a way to protect the United States from a massive missile attack, but the reality, this book argues, is that our missile defense is not nearly as effective nor developed as people have been led to believe. In American Missile Defense: A Guide to the Issues Victoria Samson brings a decade of experience to bear in an in-depth examination of missile defense as it has been envisioned and as it is actually being developed, clarifying misconceptions and laying out what a missile defense system can and cannot do.

Perhaps more important, she describes how the George W. Bush administration artificially sped up the deployment of the system, choosing, for political reasons, to develop missile defense instead of other more effective programs or policies. The result is a defense program run amok, freed from oversight and many of the reporting and funding requirements all other weapon systems must fulfill. In fact, maintains the author, our focus on missile defense risks re-starting the Cold War.