Consequence of building the National Missile Defense

Consequence of building the National Missile Defense.

The Bush administration states that given the growing ballistic

missile industry in other countries and the current political role of the

United States in the world, and especially after the attacks of September

11, 2001, the United States government has to prepare itself for attacks of

any kind. The claim is that the building of a National Missile Defense will

provide more security to the people of the United States, and will in fact

ensure the safety of every citizen of the United States within its

territory (Handberg 13). But the proponents forget to take into account the

dire consequences of building such a horrendous space weapons system.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, both the United States and the

Soviet

Union have been searching for effective ways to defend themselves against

nuclear attack. In the early 1960’s, the Soviet Union’s superiority of

invention in long-range ballistic missiles forced the United States to

reevaluate its air-defense system. This nuclear race was a major facet of

the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The cold war

was still fully active when president Ronald Reagan proposed the building

of National Missile Defense System. Originally, this plan called for

development of a space based weapons system that could detect and destroy

ballistic missiles of any kind, launched against the United States from any

distance, without causing harm to the people or the environment of the

United States. (Rip 3)

Currently, chances of the United States being attacked by ballistic

missiles of long range are very low, or do not exist at all (Ellis 1). Even

though the United States government suspects that countries like North

Korea and Iran or for that matter any Islamic state, may launch such an

attack, these countries are not in possession of weapons of mass

destruction with capabilities of harming the United States. In the book by

Anthony Cordesman called Strategic Threats and National Missile Defenses:

Defending the U.S. Homeland he states “No proliferant state currently has

the ability to strike the United States with ballistic missiles. If threats

do emerge, US conventional superiority or, if necessary, offensive nuclear

forces will deter attacks on the United States” (Cordesman 87).

Up to this day Iraq was on the top list of ‘potential nuclear threat’

to the United States. The Bush administration publicly announced that they

had evidence of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. With that

promise many soldiers were herded down there only to find these nuclear

weapons and free the people of Iraq and secure the United States. As it

turned out, this was not the case. In fact weapons of destruction of any

kind, were not present in the territory of Iraq. But as the search for

“imagined” nukes went on, so did the death toll kept going up. This of

course brings out an excellent question. Maybe, just maybe sources other

than the Central Intelligence Agency are correct in saying that “currently

there no country is capable of striking the US with ballistic missiles.”

The author of The Missile Defense Controversies, Earnest Yanarealla puts it

best the US’s role as ultimate judge, as the following:

The United States sees itself as a redemptive force with a God-given

responsibility to root out evil and spread goodness throughout the world

either by shining moral example or, when necessary, by the swift and sure

military sword of justice”(Yanarealla). Of course these assumptions do

leave one to question the necessity of such extreme measures.

Although the US government is insisting on building this missile

defense system, the Pentagon hasn’t thoroughly tested the system. Seven

tests of hitting an airborne target were conducted. The Pentagon states

that all seven were successful, and that the US government is ready to

start this project. But a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, Theodore A. Postol, in his article “Why Missile Defense Won’t

Work” explains how the tests were conducted, and how they were in fact

unsuccessful. In his detailed article, he clearly explains that in the

first two tests, the system failed to distinguish between the target

warhead and a set of decoys that were shaped like warheads. Modern nuclear

missiles all launch multiple decoys along with one or more warheads. After

this failure in the first two tests, the multiple realistically-shaped

decoys were replaced by a single large balloon-shaped decoy in all of the

later tests. In order to make the tests appear successful, the

unidentifiable decoys were removed from the test field. Dr. Postol states:

“All the problematic shortfalls in the defense system discovered in the

first two experiments have been removed through the painstaking

designing of a set of decoys that would never used by any adversary,

but would make it possible to distinguish warheads from decoys in

flight test” (Yanarella 86).

This of course does not stop the Bush administration from building this

system. The administration insists on pursuing this until they get the

results they need. Given enough time and money this system will work. This

project is given the top priority and it has unlimited budget (GPO par11).

Another controversial issue about the National Missile Defense system

is the cost to the American public. In his book David Multimer called ‘The

Weapons State: Proliferation and the Framing of Security ‘ says that:

“Effective missile defenses are difficult to build – not the least

because America’s adversaries have every incentive to find ways to defeat

them – and that the investment of billions would produce only a high-tech

sieve.”

This project will be the single most expensive project in the history of

the United States. The Chairman of the Missile Defense Program and the AMB

Treaty Committee, Senator Joseph R. Biden, estimates the cost to be between

sixty billion and one hundred billion dollars (2). And perhaps the price

might go up to half a trillion dollars, depending on the exact system that

the US government develops (GPO 15). This amount will mean more taxes from

every citizen. Instead of spending this amount of money building the

National Missile Defense system, the US government would be better served

paying off the national debt to its citizens.

As we all know the recent attacks of September 11 weren’t nuclear;

they were realized by using civilian airplanes as a weapon. These attacks

claimed more than three thousands lives. Considering the unavailability of

nuclear weapons at present, these kinds of attacks are more likely to occur

than nuclear attacks. With this notion in mind, the US government will be

better of focusing its attention, and money on increasing security at

airports, malls, or other public places. More attention should be paid on

water reserves, or campuses.

One of more serious consequence of building the National Missile

Defense is that it would be a violation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty

of 1972, signed between the Soviet Union and the United States as a way to

control the danger of nuclear war. The treaty bans the building of weapons

of such capacity (Nordeen 226). The US government can start this project

only with the consent of Russia, and the Russian president didn’t give its

approval for the violation of this treaty. The Bush administration did

violate this treaty in 2002. The Us government has to remember that, even

after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia still is in possession of

all of its nuclear arsenal. This violation means that now the Russian

Federation has all right to start developing counter measure so that the

United States defense system could be penetrated. The violation of this

treaty also means that the Russian Federation is allowed to help any

country in the development of its nuclear weapons. Already, Russia is

helping Iran in developing its nuclear facilities, and as we know Iran is

one of potential threats to the US. The violation of this treaty puts no

restraints on Russia’s assistance to any country willing to build nuclear

weapons. There are many countries willing to develop such facilities for

offensive or defensive purposes, and they are willing to pay handsome

amount for such assistance. Of course this has not started as of yet, but

surely implications are there.

At present the only state that has the power to launch weapons of mass

destruction against the United States is Russia. Dean Rusk, Secretary of

State in 1984 stated, “It would be foolish in the extreme to suppose that

we could obtain any significant or lasting advantage over the Soviets in

space weaponry” (Cordesman). Although the Russia of today is not the same

as the Soviet Union of 1984, it is still very powerful in the field of

nuclear weapons. The violation of this treaty would greatly encourage

Russia to upgrade its weapons. An upgrade of nuclear weapons by Russia

could trigger another dangerous arm race, which would lead to Cold War once

again. The author of ‘Defending America’ James Lindsay states that:

“Most countries, including many of America’s closest allies, warn that

missile defense will trigger an arms race jeopardize three decades of arms

control efforts.”

Everybody remembers how dreadful those times were. The infusion of constant

fear and anxiety on peoples’ minds were beyond what words could express.

But in the absence of a National Missile Defense system, Russia is

currently willing to decrease its production of nuclear weapons (Ellis 89).

These statistics show the superiority of Russia in nuclear weapons. It

would be a good move by the United States to do the same. In fact, these

two nations could cooperate in fighting against the unconventional

production of nuclear weapons by other states. The statistics in the book

called ‘Strategic Threats and National Missile Defenses’ by Anthony

Cordesman show that the US posses 33,500 nuclear weapons, and Russia posses

62,500 nuclear weapons. If the United States agreed on nuclear arm

reduction, then this move would reduce the risk of the United States being

attacked by weapons of mass destruction. Once this nuclear arms race

between the Russian Federation and the United States begins, the

consequences of could be devastating, both for the US and Russia as well as

for the entire globe, resulting in ultimate destruction of the planet

earth.

With Russia’s help, the US government could actually avoid the threat

of being attacked with weapons of mass destruction, and reduce the nuclear

production of both nations. Building bigger weapons could make the United

States more powerful, but this will increase our enemy’s desire to harm the

US more. This will create more hatred against Americans. Having a more

powerful nuclear arsenal is not what makes a number one nation. The United

States and Russia could really change the world, and stop this nuclear

race, and bring peace to earth, rather than attempting to find security in

a technological solution.

One of the overlooked peaces in this riddle is China. China does

posses nuclear weapons, and the building of the National Missile Defense

will incite China to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. China does not want the

United States to have superiority over them. Unlike Russia, China is not a

declining power but a rising one, and again, unlike Russia, China has

specific territorial issues over Taiwan over which it could conceivably

wage a war with the United States. As Saira Khan, the author of Nuclear

Proliferation Dynamics in Protracted Conflict Regions: a Comparative Study

of South Asia and the Middle East says:

No one should be surprised, then, that Beijing looks skeptically on

President George W. Bush’s claim that ‘America’s development of defenses is

a search of security, not a search of advantage.’”

So as we can see China doesn’t look too favorably on this issue either, and

China should be considered in making such decisions.

Right now the building of a National Missile Defense system should not

be the main concern of the United States government. The government should

carefully consider everything before jumping to any conclusions. The

building of such a system would make the United States

less secure rather than more secure at present. Besides we need to stop

this madness of nuclear race. As Albert Einstein best put it in 1946,

“There is no defense in science against the weapon which can destroy

civilization.”