Defending against anti-ship balistic missiles

[sferrin]

You don't need hard kills to drive off fleets, just the ability to threaten them.

That doesn't always work. Ships have weapons to go places where they're threatened. (You'll note the USN didn't shy away from the North Atlantic just because Russia had regiments of Kh-22/Kh-15 armed Backfires, Bear patrol aircraft, and a slew of SSGNs.)