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Can SDI Be Saved?
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14401 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1988 |
1,919 Words |
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Daniel O. Graham
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It is clear that the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) will be the prime international and security issue in the upcoming 1988 elections. A recent survey of the positions of Democratic and Republican contenders for president showed an overlap of opinion on all national security issues except one--SDI--which all Democrats firmly opposed and all Republicans supported. This explains why there has been little debate of the SDI issue during the primary election season: All candidates within each party agree with their rivals. But in the general election, SDI will almost certainly become a hot issue.
All of the Democratic candidates for president condemn SDI, along with defense expenditures in general. The most prodefense candidate, Albert Gore, ranks as a superdove among those who follow voting patterns on defense issues. His voting record and that of antidefense Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut are identical on defense issues, and Gore admits to having seriously considered defecting to Canada to avoid service in the armed forces.
Over the past few months, tens of thousands of letters have gone out from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), signed by Chairman Paul G. Kirk. It starts, "The news I am about to tell you is almost too good to be true. We can put an end to the Star Wars defensive system."
This letter to the faithful underscores the antidefense affliction of the Democratic Party, one that has been decried openly by some of its moderate-to-conservative leaders, to little or no avail.
Nevertheless, Democratic voters support the concept of strategic defense by a margin of better than two to one in one opinion poll after another. For instance, in a poll of California voters in August 1987, registered Democrats, asked whether they would vote for an initiative demanding deployment (not research) of SDI, voted 60 percent to 32 percent for deployment. The numbers soared to three to one in favor of SDI if these Democrats were disabused of the falsely high cost estimates presented by opponents of the program.
Thus, SDI will be an important unifying issue for the Republicans if they play their cards right. Conservatives have been disillusioned by many of the recent trends in the Reagan administration's security and foreign policies, but they are as one in support of a program to deploy currently available SDI defenses. Only an insignificant left-wing fringe of the Republican Party opposes initial deployment.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are faced with a huge and potentially devastating discrepancy on the SDI issue between the party leadership and the rank and file. The intellectual leadership of the party is passionately opposed to SDI. The pragmatic politicians want to be able to assuage both the pro-SDI rank and file and the intellectual naysayers. The middle to left-wing Democratic officeholders wish to be able to continue to straddle the issue, saying to pro-SDI voters. "Yes, I support SDI; I voted for three-plus billion dollars for research," and to anti-SDI voters, "Never fear, I will not allow the administration to abrogate the ABM Treaty and deploy SDI."
The more conservative Democrats, of the Sen. Sam Nunn stripe, wish to go a bit farther to assuage their defense-minded constituents. They now say,
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