Missile defense

If America Ever Tries to Nuke Moscow, Russia Has a Missile 'Shield' That Would Stop It

The most heavily defended city in the world is not Washington, DC. It’s Moscow. While the District of Columbia has legions of Secret Service and Homeland Security police defending it, the Russian capital is the only one in the world—that we know of—defended with nuclear-tipped missiles. It’s all the result of an exception built into a forty-four-year-old arms control treaty.

The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was an arms control agreement between the United States and Soviet Union. Unlike other treaties that focused on offensive weapons, the ABM Treaty focused on limiting defensive weapons, missiles designed to knock down incoming nuclear warheads. The theory behind the treaty was that unrestricted ABM missile deployments on both sides would lead to ever-escalating offensive missile arsenals, as each side tried to overcome the other’s ever-growing defenses.