Building missile defense system unnecessary

In his 2004 budget, President Bush not only revives former
President Ronald Reagan’s controversial “Star
Wars” missile defense system, but he also wants it to be
exempt from operational testing and congressional oversight
required of all new weapons programs so it can be implemented
faster. Thus, if accepted, Bush’s proposal will result in
excessive spending on weapons systems we do not need, that may not
even work.

The missile defense system Bush proposed is equipped with land
and sea based interceptors, airborne lasers, space-based weapons,
and a price tag of at least $70 billion ““ more than the
entire military budgets of countries such as France, Germany and
the United Kingdom. The cost of the defense shield is more than
fiscal, though. The United States has abandoned the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty it established with the former Soviet
Union in order to launch this system ““ the treaty was adopted
to help ease Cold War tensions. This has the potential to create a
host of problems, given that any missile “defense”
system is going to be paradoxically interpreted as offensive.

A missile defense system will basically exempt the United States
from the “mutually assured destruction” doctrine, which
maintains countries will not attack each other with weapons of mass
destruction in fear of facing great destruction themselves. Other
countries will try to build defense systems to catch up to the
United States, resulting in a new “defense” arms race
reminiscent of the Cold War.

The United States’ flagrant disregard for major world
treaties sets a bad precedent for future diplomatic efforts.
Countries can simply point to the United States’ shrugging
off the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty if they wish to break with
other treaties they established with the United States.

The United States already has the world’s best missile
defense system ““ the ability to inflict greater harm on any
country than any country can inflict on it. Any world leader looney
enough to even threaten to launch a nuclear missile against the
United States would sign his own death warrant, not to mention his
country’s. And even though Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il are
volatile and threatening dictators, a blatantly overt missile
strike from their respective countries is less likely than other
methods of attacking the United States. A terrorist attack on LAX
like that of Sept. 11, 2001, will happen before North Korea or Iraq
launches a missile at Los Angeles. Having a missile defense system
in place would not have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept.
11, 2001, the cause of the United States’ current concerns
over homeland security in the first place.

Allowing the Pentagon’s system to bypass operational
testing is costly and wasteful. Philip Coyle, director of
operational testing and evaluation for the Pentagon from 1994 to
2001, said that “without these tests, we may never know
whether this system works or not … and we won’t know until
we’ve spend $70 billion on a ground-based missile defense
system.” Spending billions of dollars on an enormous and
controversial project without testing to make sure the project will
be successful is a slap in the face to U.S. taxpayers who would
better benefit from the money’s being spent on social
programs or helping economically sinking states like
California.

The United States’ should be spending its money on curbing
its main opponent: terrorism. A weapons shield will not be
full-proof, it will not save our allies from attack, it will not
protect interests abroad, and it will be completely useless in
stopping Osama bin Laden and those like him.