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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

commondata - 11:13am Dec 17, 2002 EST (# 6780 of 6783)

Wilson's Ghost was worth reading again. It's main idea, set out in the first paragraph, seems at odds with the acts of the present U.S. administration.

We lay the foundation for a new foreign and defense policy for America and the world based on a moral imperative to reduce deaths from war, and a U.S. commitment to lead the world toward that objective but never to apply its political, economic, or military force unilaterally.

Let's measure the success of those aspirations:

1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. In December 2001, President Bush formally announced that the United States intends to withdraw from it.

Biological Weapons Convention. The same month, the Bush Administration urged abandonment of international negotiations on verification procedures for the Biological Weapons Convention.

Nuclear test explosions. In January 2002, the Pentagon issued a report moving the U.S. closer to resuming them.

Convention on the prohibition of land mines. Every country in the Western Hemisphere has signed the treaty except the United States and Cuba.

Chemical Weapons Convention. When Congress adopted legislation implementing the CWC, it included a series of unilateral exemptions that make it effectively useless.

Kyoto Global Warming Accord. In March 2001, President Bush shocked the rest of the world by withdrawing from the Kyoto Global Warming negotiations without proposing any changes.

International Criminal Court. The Bush administration has rejected it.

United Nations Dues. The United States still owes $1 billion in back dues and peace operations assessments.

Here's Condolezza Rice's 2 cents' worth: "A Republican administration will proceed from the firm ground of the national interest, not from the interests of an illusory international community."

I understand Almarst's indignation completely. I'd like to see a deep freeze in the relationship between the US and its traditional allies until all of these issues are resolved. Quite why the UK breaths credibilty into this set of disastrous policies with its unwavering support is a mystery to me. I don't believe it can last.

commondata - 11:50am Dec 17, 2002 EST (# 6781 of 6783)

Does Condolezza Rice not understand that US national interests and the interests of the "illusory international community" cooincide in the following areas?

To combat international terrorism, including sharing intelligence, joint police work and customs cooperation;

To stem proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology;

To place effective sanctions on law-breaking states;

To prevent pollution and environmental degradation from spreading across borders;

To negotiate trade agreements with the rest of the world;

To permit U.S. companies to invest in foreign countries;

To combat the international spread of disease;

To limit massive flows of refugees across international borders;

To work with other nations to end violence and conflict that threaten to destabilize entire regions of the world.

I guess not.

wrcooper - 12:23pm Dec 17, 2002 EST (# 6782 of 6783)

December 17, 2002

Bush Orders Military to Build Limited Missile Defense by 2004

Filed at 11:37 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday ordered the military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and sea-based interceptor rockets to be operational starting in 2004.

The decision came despite last week's failure of an anti-missile test over the Pacific Ocean.

In a statement, Bush said his goal was to ``protect our citizens against what is perhaps the greatest danger of all -- catastrophic harm that may result from hostile states or terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.''

Defense officials, who asked not to be identified, said Bush was going ahead with an ambitious schedule to field 10 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greeley, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006.

The initial defense is also expected to include Aegis warship-based missiles, and another Bush administration official said ground-based interceptors could also possibly be deployed at Vandenberg Air Force base in California.

``Today I am pleased to announce that we will take another important step in countering these threats by beginning to field missile defense capabilities to protect the United States as well as our friends and allies,'' Bush said.

``While modest, these capabilities will add to American security and serve as a starting point for improved and expanded capabilities later as further progress is made in researching and developing missile defense technologies and in light of changes in the threat,'' he added.

Bush said the administration planned to begin operating ``initial capabilities'' in 2004 and 2005, including ground- and sea-based interceptors, additional Patriot units used to shoot down shorter-range missiles, and sensors based ``on land, at sea and in space.''

Erecting such a defense shield is the Pentagon's single most expensive development program, likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars over coming decades.

Last Wednesday, the United States suffered its third failure in eight test attempts to shoot down a long-range dummy warhead in space over the Pacific Ocean, and scientific critics of the multibillion-dollar program have charged it is not yet mature enough to begin deployment.

But Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have stressed the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology have sharply increased the need for such a defense against attack from ``rogue states'' such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea, especially in the wake of devastating attacks on America using hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001.

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