ABM's have had a rather chequered history. 1960's Soviet experiments with an ABM system based near Moscow failed, as did American ones, leading to the USA-USSR ABM treaty of (1971?), which banned the development of missiles designed to shoot down each other's ICBMs.
The Reagan-era Strategic Defence Initiative, along with research into various energy-beam weaponry, brought new interest in the area of ABM technologies, but nothing was deployed operationally until Patriot missiles were used in the 1991 Gulf War to shoot down Iraqi Scud missiles. Many observers claim the Patriot was largely ineffective, but then the weapon was originally designed as an anti-aircraft and cruise missile weapon, not designed to shoot down much faster-moving ballistic weapons.
The election of George W. Bush in 2000 has led to the renewed interest and several ABM tests, as the US military and their new political masters seek to demonstrate the feasibility of shooting down ballistic missiles. It remains to be seen whether a system reliable enough to be useful operationally can be developed.
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