Anti-ship ballistic missiles as a cost problem

Are anti-ship ballistic missiles a little overhyped given the availability of anti-ballistic-missile weapons?

They can be useful cost multipliers and deterrent tools, but their guidance limits and escalation risks make them a poor standalone replacement for surface forces.

Anti-ship ballistic missiles trade speed against guidance and interceptability. A weapon moving fast enough to be difficult to intercept may be hard to update through the plasma surrounding it, while a slower weapon is easier to communicate with and easier to shoot down. Launching several ballistic missiles also creates dangerous ambiguity because an opponent cannot safely assume that every missile has a conventional anti-ship warhead. Their strongest value may be as cost multipliers that force rivals to buy sensors, interceptors, satellite coverage, and missile-defence capacity. Defensive missiles also occupy scarce vertical-launch cells, so the threat affects a ship's magazine as well as its procurement cost. That makes them useful deterrent tools without making surface fleets obsolete.