Amerykański system obrony przeciwrakietowej - cele, koncepcje, umiejscowienie
The American Missile Defence System – goals, concepts, situation

Summary/Abstract: The development of the concept of American National Missile Defence (NMD) system is a process rooted in the time of the Cold War. The fast development of military technology and the complex political situation on international stage made the threat of attack real. The response to the permanently escalating threat have been a succession of programmes: Nike-Zeus, Nike X, Sentinel, and Safeguard. The breakthrough in the development of increasingly modern defence systems was the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems signed on 26th May 1972 in Moscow. The return to the idea of developing a missile defence system took place under Ronald Reagan. Even though the programme has continued to this day, its objectives have changed. With the conclusion of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR, the threat was no longer a single enemy communist state but the so-called ‘rogue states’. The talks on the deployment of the elements of the NMD system (the so-called ‘US missile shield’) in Poland and Czech Republic resulted in a protest from Russia fearing the approach of American infrastructure to own borders, which greatly complicated the negotiations process. Additional obstacles arose when first US Congress made signing appropriate international agreements with the European states the condition for awarding the money to the project, and later the governing party in Poland changed. The future of the American system of missile defence system will primarily depend on the results of the Presidential Elections that will be held in the US this November. The positions of US presidential candidates on the NMD system varies, and it is on the winner of the presidential race that the future of strategic defence hinges.

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