Missile defense capabilities do add to uncertainty in two ways. First, in preventing your adversary from knowing how effective his attack will be. Second, in adding uncertainty to what you response will have to be. If Iran fires at someone and we shoot it all down, then the situation offers the Tom Clancy type of response where the President goes on TV and says “The countdown is starting. Either you turn over the following list of people to us and allow us to send in teams to destroy the following WMD targets, or we will destroy you utterly and completely, as a nation, as a people. 48 hours and counting on my mark … Now!”

When we were studying conventional ICBM options, it was assumed that the entire attack would be on live TV, covered as if it was a space launch, to support just that sort of scenario.

Then there is the other kind of uncertainty, the kind that really drove the Soviets crazy. I believe that their opposition to SDI was based largely on what would come out of such a broad-based effort into advanced military technology. Our first ASAT weapon was a modified anti-tank warhead, launched by what began as a short range nuclear missile from a fighter designed for a dedicated air combat role. Our legendary inventiveness has enabled us to keep changing the rules. The Russians fear what those anti-Iranian missile defense capabilities might become in response to their own saber-ratting.