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RECENT NEWS COVERAGE: March 23rd, 2001 For Immediate Release Anniversary of Reagan’s “Star Wars” Speech: New York, March 23rd: Eighteen years ago today, President Ronald Reagan shocked the scientific community and the world when he announced his intention to launch an ambitious missile defense research program designed to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Reagan acknowledged that this “formidable technical task…may not be accomplished before the end of this century.” The end of the 20th century has come and gone, but the dream of a shield against nuclear weapons lives on. While Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative sought to protect the U.S. from thousands of Soviet nuclear missiles, the Bush administration is shopping for a more modest system designed “to protect all 50 states and our friends and allies and deployed forces overseas” from a handful of missiles launched by a “rogue” nation such as Iraq or North Korea. President Bush has talked of a layered missile defense system with interceptors on land, at sea, on airplanes, and in outer space, but a detailed explanation of the administration’s plans won’t be available until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld completes his military posture review later this year. In a recent interview with a British newspaper, Rumsfeld suggested that the Bush approach might blend elements of the Clinton/Gore NMD program, built around land-based interceptor missiles based in Alaska and North Dakota, with a new capability designed to intercept ballistic missiles in their “boost phase,” before they have released multiple warheads or decoys to complicate the task of the defender. “The more the administration talks about it, the more the Bush proposal begins to sound like a return to Reagan’s original Star Wars vision, with all the costs and risks that would entail,” asserts William D. Hartung, President’s Fellow at the World Policy Institute. But whether the Bush plan turns out to be a scaled-up version of the Clinton/Gore approach or “Star Wars II,” the same kinds of technical problems, cost overruns, and diplomatic obstacles that brought the original Strategic Defense Initiative to a halt in the 1980s are likely to crop up again. A report released last month by the Pentagon’s Office of Independent Testing and Evaluation outlines the daunting challenges facing U.S. missile defense programs. For the National Missile Defense system, which failed two out of its’ three intercept tests, the report warns that the system is far from ready to intercept the kinds of missiles “currently deployed by the established nuclear powers” – missiles that employ countermeasures and decoys. The report warns that the Navy Theater Wide system, a sea-based system being touted by many proponents as a near-term, “quick and easy” alternative to the NMD system, is not currently a viable option. And the highly touted Space Based Laser is little more than a concept at this stage. The costs of deploying a missile defense system now will range anywhere from the General Accounting Office’s $60 billion estimate for the limited NMD system currently being tested, to $240 billion or more for the multi-layered approach that President Bush seems to support. Since Reagan shared his missile defense dream with the world in March 1983, the U.S. has spent more than $70 billion on the various mutations of missile defense, without producing a single workable device. Even if a system could be made to work on a military/technical level, a hasty decision to deploy poses grave risks to global security. As the U.S. government’s top intelligence analyst on missile proliferation suggested last summer, deployment could set off “an unsettling series of political and military ripple effects . . . that would include a sharp buildup of strategic and medium-range nuclear missiles by China, India, and Pakistan and the further spread of military technology in the Middle East.” In short, a hasty decision to deploy a missile defense system could spark a global nuclear arms race. The bottom line is that, contrary to recent administration assertions, Bush’s missile defense plan is no more “inevitable” than Reagan’s was. “In fact, Bush should consider borrowing a page from Reagan’s playbook by seeking deep reductions in nuclear weapons, with or without a missile defense,” says William Hartung. “All true believers, who support an ambitious missile defense program as a way of honoring Reagan’s legacy, seem to forget that Reagan never built Star Wars, but he did agree to sharp reductions in U.S. nuclear forces.” It was Reagan who agreed to eliminate intermediate range nuclear weapons from Europe and set the stage for the first major reductions in nuclear weapons under the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Instead of spending billions on a risky high-tech scheme with little prospect of success, President Bush should go on the diplomatic offensive to reduce nuclear dangers now. He should start by taking up Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to reduce U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads to 1,000 or less per side. He should also take the advice of Secretary of State Colin Powell and Korean President Kim Dae Jung by picking up where the Clinton administration left off in the U.S.-North Korean talks on ending Pyonyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Today’s missile defense proposals are every bit as dangerous and misguided as Reagan’s scheme. If pursued vigorously without careful consultation with allies and potential adversaries, this new round of missile defense plans could end up unraveling thirty years of arms-control agreements and heighten the danger of nuclear war. A more consistent reliance on cooperative diplomacy will be far more effective in protecting us from nuclear weapons than a revived “Star Wars” program could ever be. The sooner President Bush realizes this, the sooner he can proceed with a more practical plan for defending us from post-Cold War nuclear threats. For more information please consult our website at: www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms NOTE TO EDITORS: If you are interested in an op-ed/commentary piece on this topic, contact Michelle Ciarrocca at 212-229-5808, ext. 107, ciarrm01@newschool.edu
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