China is developing a multi-dimensional programme aimed at improving its ability to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by adversaries during a crisis, the Pentagon says in its latest report on the country’s military. Is this another step toward a ‘Star Wars’ missile defence shield?

China in an early 2010 exercise attempted to intercept a mock enemy missile with the same weapon it had used to shoot down one of its orbiting satellites in a test three years earlier, suggesting the nation's antisatellite technology was also designed to defend against strategic missiles, the Washington Times reported yesterday.

Russia said further cuts in nuclear weapons sought by the U.S. can be achieved only as part of a multinational accord limiting other types of armaments, a position that dims the Obama administration's chances for swift progress toward one of its biggest foreign policy goals. Future rounds of talks aimed at slashing Russia's large arsenal of short-range tactical nuclear weapons must involve other nuclear powers and focus as well on conventional warheads and weapons in space.

The Indian Defense Research and Development Organization is working on a range of directed energy weapons, from laser dazzlers to control rioting crowds to high-powered lasers to destroy incoming missiles.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a report on Saturday accusing the United States of violating dozens of provisions of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons treaties going back about a decade, apparently in a retort to American critics of a new arms treaty, who have been accusing Russia of violating past agreements.

President Obama’s plans for reducing America’s nuclear arsenal and defeating Iran’s missiles rely heavily on a new generation of antimissile defenses, which last year he called “proven and effective,” but now, a new analysis being published by two antimissile critics, at M.I.T. and Cornell, casts doubt on the reliability of the new weapon.

A new nuclear arms control treaty signed by the United States and Russia in April would not limit future U.S. plans for missile defense, key military brass said yesterday

A Chinese ballistic and cruise missile buildup targeting Taiwan could ultimately undermine the strategic security of other nations in Asia as well as the United States, warns a new report slated for publication this week by the Project 2049 Institute

U.S. anti-ballistic missile systems will cover all of Europe by 2018, a senior Pentagon official said, laying out an ambitious target for defending against a perceived threat from Iran.

A high-powered laser aboard a modified Boeing Co 747 jumbo jet shot down an in-flight ballistic missile for the first time, highlighting a new class of ray guns best known from science fiction.