Congress and the executive support the continued development of ballistic missile defense systems. Since the Bush administration came into office in 2001, the United States has pulled out ofthe Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and revamped research and development funding for this defense initiative, asking as much as 9 billion dollars per year. This thesis analyzes the strategic problems associated with the implementation ofthese systems and moving the United States from a deterrence-based nuclear posture to a defense-based one. It concludes with a statistical analysis of factors in each US Senator's background that might have influenced the probability of their voting against constraining the program in June 2004 using probit regression methodology.
