Is Missile Defense Our Best Defense?

WAMU 88.5

Published June 1, 2017 at 10:06 AM EDT

People watch a ground-based interceptor missile take off at Vandenberg Air Force base in California on May 30, 2017.

This week, the Pentagon successfully tested and shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile target. The move is widely seen as a test of the Pentagon’s ability to counter a North Korean missile launch.

But how exactly does the US’s missile defense system work? And can we trust it when we need it the most? When lives are on the line?

GUESTS

David Wright, Physicist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists

Steven Pifer, Director of the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at the Brookings Institution; former US ambassador to Ukraine

Thomas Karako, Director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Maj. Gen. Francis Mahon (ret.), Former Commanding General in the Army Air and Missile Defense Command; former Director of Test in the Missile Defense Agency

For more, visit http://the1a.org.