Up In Smoke

Had either Kim Il Sung or Saddam Hussein chosen to open their campaigns with a barrage of tactical missiles, there would have been nothing for the ABLs to do, except maybe stooge around the still-smoking ruins of the country they were supposed to defend, vainly searching for new launches. In fact, the very presence of ABL anti-missile aircraft might spur future "rogue" nations to begin their wars exactly that way. Should that happen, the money and years of research spent on the ABL will have been for nothing. Which is rather how it looks right now.