Anti-Missile Defense System of the United States and Nuclear Deterrence

The expansion of anti-missile system of the United States has led to severalreactions from other international actors. Some of the Western countries especially theUnited States’ allies consider the deployment of these systems as providing theirsecurity and the stability of international system. On the other hand countries like Chinaand in particular Russia consider these systems as a destabilizing factor for internationalsecurity and disrupting the nuclear deterrence and therefore a threat to their security.The present descriptive analytical paper examines the relations between the UnitedStates anti-missile system and nuclear deterrence. For this reason it defines the conceptand the characteristic of nuclear deterrence strategy and missile defense system and thenexamines the relation of these two concepts before the Cold War and after of the end ofCold War. The finding is that during the Cold War the anti-missile system were in thedirection of stabilizing balance of power, therefore, it led to stability but after the end ofCold War, though in the face of it is defensive but in reality it is offensive and it ignoresthe balancing strategy and it is in the direction of military-nuclear superiority.