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SDI: Needed to Defend the Nation
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13446 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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9 / 1987 |
2,415 Words |
| Author
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Malcolm Wallop
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Despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution says that "we the people" established this government in the first place to "provide for the common defense," no part of our armed forces has the mission to defend us against the greatest military threat we face: Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. I have proposed a bill that imposes this mission on our armed forces and creates a special service branch specifically to perform this protective mission. The bill also mandates the speedy production of suitable weapons that the Pentagon has had on the drawing boards for years (and for which the technology has long existed), but that we have not deployed because of indecision. The bill also makes certain provisions to ensure that the organization created to fulfill this urgent mission is not bogged down by current procurement practices, bureaucratic rules, regulations, and customs that have made the Pentagon the subject of great criticism, both inside and outside the congressional chambers.
There can be no denying that this bill was born out of immense frustration with the administration's handling of the SDI program. As the Reagan administration itself has pointed out, it regards the feasibility and desirability of antimissile defenses as open questions. In addition, although the administration does not say this so loudly, the many long-standing antimissile research programs that came under SDI have not been accelerated but rather have been slowed down. This includes the homing overlay program (now known as ERIS), the airborne optical adjunct system, the space-based laser, and the follow on to our geosynchronous DSP satellite that identifies and tracks missile boosters.
Bureaucrats' Reply
The bureaucracy explains these delaying tactics with two sets of arguments. First, there is the position that we must develop weapons and sensors not to deal with the threats that exist, or that intelligence sees coming along, but rather to deal with the worst threats we can imagine. Thus, whatever we can do is inadequate by definition. Moreover, we must not build any individual weapon or sensor until all the parts of an overall system are ready to deploy and ready to be integrated into a single, protested battle-management system, certified to be cost-effective. My only comment on this is: Good Luck.
Second, there is the host of conflicting interpretations of the requirements of the ABM Treaty. The struggle between them is all in good fun because it keeps the contestants from facing the real question: Do we or do we not agree with the purpose of the ABM Treaty? If we do agree, then life is simple. We won't build any antimissile defenses and that will be that. But if we disagree, life is also simple. We will serve notice, as required by that treaty that we think the treaty is a bad idea and that we are going to build defenses.
When President Reagan proposed SDI on March 23, 1983, evidently it was not because he wanted to build antimissile defenses. More time has passed since that day than elapsed between Pearl Harbor Day and V-J Day. During that earlier time, this country armed most of the world and developed the huge technical infrastructure necessary to construct the atom bomb from scratch. Yet, four years after Reagan's announcement, we appear no closer, indeed we are farther, from committing the country and its resources to the strategic defense we so vitally
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