Anti-ballistic missile
surface-to-air missile designed to target ballistic missiles in flight
An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill kinetic vehicles, which may also have self-maneuvering capabilities.
Tactical systems are widely deployed to counter short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles that carry conventional warheads.
Strategic systems, deployed by the United States, Russia, China, and Israel, are capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles, typically used to carry strategic nuclear warheads. During the Cold War, the 1972 ABM Treaty limited the nuclear arms race; excessive ICBM production would have been favoured to overwhelm ABM systems. For modern strategic systems, Russia's ABMs are the only ones that are themselves armed with nuclear warheads.
Current counter-ICBM systems
There are a limited number of systems worldwide that can intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles
The Russian A-135 anti-ballistic missile system (upgraded in 2017 to A-235) is used for the defense of Moscow. It became operational in 1995 and was preceded by the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system. The system uses Gorgon and Gazelle missiles previously armed with nuclear warheads. These missiles have been updated (2017) and use non-nuclear kinetic interceptors instead, to intercept any incoming ICBMs.
The public source identifies “Anti-ballistic missile” as surface-to-air missile designed to target ballistic missiles in flight. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Anti-ballistic, missile and surface-to-air.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q574594. The Library of Congress control number is sh85005700. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2017 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Anti-ballistic missile” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.