Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2012

New Challenges in Missile Proliferation, Missile Defense, and Space Security

James Clay Moltz (ed)

August 2003

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Abstract

Although missiles, missile defense technology, and space issues are intricately related, most policy analysis tends to treat each in a separate category. This tendency causes policymakers to miss the linkages among them and the overlap in the issues that affect developments in each of the other sectors. For this reason, four organizations—the Mountbatten Centre of the University of Southampton, the Simons Centre of the University of British Columbia, the U.N. Center for Disarmament Research in Geneva, and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) of the Monterey Institute of International Studies—decided to organize a joint international conference that would consciously explore these linkages and treat the relevant issues in an integrated manner, benefiting from the expertise of specialists present from each of the three fields. This collection offers some of the key papers presented at the conference on “Missile Proliferation, Missile Defenses, and Space Security: Confronting and Addressing New Challenges,” which was held at Wiston House in England from June 1-4, 2003. The meeting brought together government officials, military personnel, and experts from Austria, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In each area, the conference organizers sought out accomplished experts to give technical presentations examining emerging threats and cooperative opportunities on subjects not receiving enough attention in mainstream analysis. Although government officials did participate, the meeting was not “political,” and there was a remarkably harmonious discussion of common interests and shared concerns among the many officials present. The discussions were held off-the-record, but a number of participants agreed to share their papers with a wider audience in this publication.