Nuclear missile defense

The idea that nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles could be shot down by defensive missiles has been a prominent feature of United Stated defence thinking since the invention of the ICBM. In the 1970s it was proposed to use defensive nuclear missiles to down incoming nuclear missiles. A defensive missile would only have to get with 2000 m of its target to destroy it. In the 1980s. Such a system was deployed at Grand Forks Air Force Base in the United States under President Richard Nixon, while a similar system, called Galosh, was deployed by the Soviet Union around Moscow.