Justifying Ballistic Missile Defence
Technology, Security and Culture

Examines the ways in which views of technology have been used in debates over ballistic missile defence.

Columba Peoples (Author)

9780521130417, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 December 2009

318 pages
23.3 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.5 kg

'Despite the already vast literature on ballistic missile defence, Columba Peoples's book, winner of the British International Studies Association (BISA) International Studies PhD thesis prize in 2007, is a welcome and important addition to our understanding of why ballistic missile defence continues to escape the perceived confines and limitations of its costly, complex and contentious nature. … this book marks an important step forward in our understanding of the American infatuation with ballistic missile defence, and provides a highly readable example of how critical theories of security can aid and abet our understanding of policies and phenomena that might otherwise continue to baffle us.' International Affairs

Technology is championed as the solution to modern security problems, but also blamed as their cause. This book assesses the way in which these two views collide in the debate over ballistic missile defence: a complex, costly and controversial system intended to defend the United States from nuclear missile attacks. Columba Peoples shows how, in the face of strong scientific and strategic critique, advocates of missile defence seek to justify its development by reference to broader culturally embedded perceptions of the promises and perils of technological development. Unpacking the assumptions behind the justification of missile defence initiatives, both past and present, this book illustrates how common-sense understandings of technology are combined and used to legitimate this controversial and costly defence programme. In doing so it engages fundamental debates over understandings of technological development, human agency and the relationship between technology and security.

Introduction
Part I. Technology, Security and Culture: 1. Critical theory, security and technology
2. Technology and common sense in America
Part II. Post-War Missile Defence: 3. Defence in the missile age?
4. Post-war missile defence and the language of technological fears
Part III. The Strategic Defence Initiative: 5. The Strategic Defence Initiative and America's technological heritage
6. 'Star Wars' and technological determinism
Part IV. Contemporary Missile Defence: 7. Ballistic missile defence:'technology working for you, now'
8. The iron cage of proliferation
Conclusion: common sense and the strategic use of 'technology'.

Subject Areas: Military tactics [JWKT], International relations [JPS], Military history [HBW]