This post is from April 2004. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Bob Joseph Says Missile Defense Will Be Space Based

Here is the last paragraph in the Aviation Week & Space Technology article on easing export controls to improve international missile defense collaboration:

Long-time missile defense advocate Robert G. Joseph, special assistant to the President and senior director for proliferation strategies, counterproliferation and homeland defense, argues that “ultimately we must go to space” and not just rely on sensors, as is done today.

No details yet about when and where Joseph said it, but someone is off-message. Administration and MDA officials, especially General Kadish, have tried to downplay the space-based aspect.

Joseph made similar remarks in Congressional testimony in 1999 and 2000, when he described space- and sea-based boost phase intercept as ” the most promising and cost effective avenues to defense.”

Jeffrey Lewis

Writing on ACW 2004–2026

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.com. He is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor to Survival.

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