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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 08:05am Aug 9, 2001 EST (#7805 of 7807)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Senate Leader to Challenge Bush on Missile Defense By ALISON MITCHELL http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/09/international/09DASC.html

"WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 — Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, plans to continue his challenge to President Bush on missile defense by accusing the president of taking a "single-minded approach" to national security, according to an advance text of a speech Mr. Daschle is to deliver on Thursday.

"The South Dakota Democrat argued in the speech that Mr. Bush's policies increase the risk of nuclear weapons spreading to countries that do not now have them and uses money that ought to be spent on more pressing security threats.

"Mr. Daschle's remarks, to be made in a speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center , are part of an effort by prominent Democrats to portray Mr. Bush as a unilateralist. They set the stage for a struggle in September when Senate committees, under the control of Democrats, begin considering Mr. Bush's request for $343.3 billion for military programs for the new fiscal year, including $8.3 billion for missile defense.

"Trying to paint Democrats as more responsive than Mr. Bush to the broader needs of the American military, Mr. Daschle said the $8.3 billion would represent a 57 percent increase for missile defense, at the expense of other security programs.

"We support an increase in both the Pentagon budget and in missile defense," he said, according to an advance text of the speech. "But a 57 percent increase this year — along with the prospect of hundreds of billions of dollars in future years — would cannibalize the personnel and force structure that deal with the threats we are likely to face."

"Last month Mr. Daschle, who as the Senate majority leader is now the most powerful Democrat in Washington, was rebuked by the White House for calling Mr. Bush's foreign policy isolationist just as the president was embarking on an overseas trip. Republicans accused Mr. Daschle of ignoring the maxim that "politics stops at the water's edge.

"But Mr. Daschle has not backed off. Noting that the administration has recently found fault with six international agreements, he said, "Instead of asserting our leadership, we are abdicating it."

"With the cold war over, he argued, "Fear of a common enemy no longer keeps our allies by our side. Our allies will follow us only if we use our unparalleled strength and prosperity to advance common interests. Only then will our power inspire respect instead of resentment."

"As Democrats have stepped up such charges, the president's senior advisers have replied that the administration would apply the standard of American national interest in determining whether to support or reject international accords.

"In the case of global warming, administration officials say, for example, that the pact would endanger the American economy and harm global financial health. On relations with Russia, the administration has stated that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty is outdated and stands in the way of coupling historic reductions in nuclear arsenals with a new defense against ballistic missiles.

"While Mr. Daschle said in the text of his speech that Democrats could under "the right circumstances," support a limited missile defense system, he accused Mr. Bush of putting far too much emphasis on a defense shield and of looking at complex relationships with Russia and China through the distorting prism of missile defense alone.

""What else could explain for example, President Bush's personal embrace of Russia's president Vladimir Putin — while avoiding any public mention of Putin's crackdown on Russia's free press and their continuing atrocities in Chechnya?" he said.

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rshowalter - 08:06am Aug 9, 2001 EST (#7806 of 7807)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"Setting the stage for a battle over Pentagon priorities, Mr. Daschle described the chief threats to the United States as coming not from intercontinental ballistic missiles, but from "biological and chemical weapons and bombs that could be smuggled in a cargo container, bus or backpack" as well as attacks on such infrastructure as computer systems.

""National missile defense," Mr. Daschle said, "is the most expensive possible response to the least likely threat we face."

"His speech cited a list of tradeoffs that could be made if Congress provides the missile defense program with only a 10 percent increase in the next fiscal year, freeing up $2.5 billion for other programs that he says will address "more imminent, more immediate threats."

"Among his recommendations were restored funding to help Russia control and destroy nuclear weapons, training for emergency workers to deal with chemical or biological attack, an increased counterterrorism budget, reinforced border patrols, increased research into cruise missile defense, and funding to help control North Korea's nuclear fuel production and re-engage it on ending its missile program.

""These are all here and now threats," he said, "and we could fund all of these programs at levels necessary to start addressing them without shortchanging our troops, the weapons systems they rely on or missile defense."

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