Part 2: The 2010 U.S. Defense Budget and BMD

Editor's Note: This is the second part of a four-part special report on the U.S. defense budget for 2010.

When U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his department's proposed 2010 defense budget on April 6, one of the changes — not unexpected — was a realignment of funding for ballistic missile defense (BMD). Gates wants to focus on more mature BMD technologies that can deal with missile launches from "rogue" countries like Iran and North Korea.