GPALS was intended to defend against salvos of up to how many missiles?

• A. 50 missiles
• B. 100 missiles
• C. 200 missiles
• D. 500 missiles

Answer: (C)

GPALS is about matching defensive capacity to a limited, credible threat rather than trying to stop a full-scale nuclear exchange. The idea was to create a defense that could handle a moderate salvos—on the order of a few hundred missiles—so a potential attacker would face a real obstacle to achieving a successful limited strike. This scale fits with the concept of deterrence: it signals that a limited attack would be thwarted, while avoiding the enormous, destabilizing burden of defending against an all-out onslaught.

If the system were sized for only a very small salvo, it wouldn’t deter a strategic challenger bluffing about a bigger attack. If it tried to defend against a massive, all-out barrage, the resource and political costs would be prohibitive and could disrupt strategic stability and arms-control assumptions of the era. So the intended defense against a sizable but limited salvo is what makes this approach the best fit.