When U.S. President Clinton, pressured by political considerations, initiated plans for a National Missile Defense System, he proposed a limited land-based system, costing $60 billion and consisting of 100 interceptor missiles located in Alaska, backed by a network of early warning satellites, ground-based radars and battle management computers. In the words of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the system would be designed to shoot down "a few tens" of incoming missiles. With serious concern the system could ever work and worried about allied support for a system that will breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, President Clinton decided to defer a decision on deployment of the system until sometime in 2001.
