Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. In this week's program, after North Korea's

latest missile test, we'll examine the technology behind ballistic missiles and ask how much

of a threat they represent.

On Tuesday morning, local time, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea lobbed a missile over Japan and into the sea beyond.

A few weeks ago, the briefing room briefed you on the people who fired the missile.

This week, we're looking at the missile.

What have the North Koreans got and what are they developing?

What damage could they do and to who?

And is there any way of intercepting it?

Step into the briefing room and find out.

Long-range missile attack was supposed to be a threat from the past. Older listeners may, like me, remember this from 34 years ago.

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S.

retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic

missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies.

I know this is a formidable technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. Yet current

technology has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to begin this

effort. That was President Reagan announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative, which would come to be

known as Star Wars. So what happened to that and the various other

expensive systems designed to remove the missile threat? For many years, Dr Patricia Lewis worked

for the United Nations on the problem of the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons.

She now works on international security for Chatham House,

the Foreign Affairs think tank.

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