Today’s Star Wars

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Today’s Star Wars

It wasn’t so long ago that the specter of nuclear war hung over our heads. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed that our major nuclear threat had disappeared almost overnight. Up to that time the United States had been developing a National Missile Defense system, or NMD, to protect the US and North America from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles. The thought of having a gigantic techno-umbrella that would shield us from falling nukes appeals to many Americans; we tend to see the obvious benefits without looking closely at the whole picture. The deployment of a National Missile Defense system receives the majority of popular support, but when all of the information is looked at, the drawbacks quickly become evident.

What we consider to be a National Missile Defense got its start back in the Reagan administration. According to veteran political writer Lou Cannon, in an interview with the National Review, the whole costly idea of a NMD system was set into motion after President Reagan visited NORAD, the agency responsible for protecting North America from attack from the air. After watching the radar screens keeping watch over America he inquired what could be done to stop an incoming Soviet nuclear missile. The answer was: “Nothing.” (Galloway, 12) The plan that Reagan came up with, and later developed by President Bush was extensive to say the least. It was designed to fend off thousands of Soviet missiles, at a cost estimated near the hundred-brillion-dollar mark (Hartung, 11).

After President Clinton assumed office in 1992 one of the first things he did was shut down the NMD research projects. The “Star Wars projects burnt up over 40 billion dollars before President Clinton arrived (Phillips, 12). But now we have a mandate to field a National Missile Defense by the year 2003. How did this expensive relic of the Cold War revive its self? Why did the President do an about-face on such a controversial topic? Simple, the perceived threat of a rogue state launch has grown, as has the public’s support for a NMD. Several unfriendly nations have had successful test launches recently, such as North Korea’s launch of a Taepo Dong 1 over Japan in August of 1998. The North Korean’s were also developing the Taepo Dong 2, which has a range of over 10,000 km, enough to reach Humboldt County. (Phillips, 14) We were also coming up on a Presidential election, and the Democrat’s didn’t want to be perceived as being weak in the area of National Defense. So we dusted off the research books and went at it again.

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The decision to go forward with the testing and possible deployment of a NMD is one rife with controversy and laden with many technical obstacles. The defense system proposed by President Clinton is a vastly scaled down version of the Reagan era “Star Wars” plan. His plan was a “3+3” concept, with 3 years for development and testing and 3 years for deployment. It called for a ring of high and low orbiting infrared imaging satellites; a ground based super sensitive radar system in Massachusetts and Northern California, a command and control center in NORAD and high-speed interceptor rockets in ...

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