Brief history

The nuclear powers signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty hereafter) in 1972 because they realized, after some effort to create an ABM system, that it was a hopeless game. No defense system could ever outpace an offensive system. Any ABM system could be defeated simply by increasing the number of missiles it had to shoot down, and/or by deploying decoys such as coated balloons or aluminum chaff with the warheads.

The ABM Treaty limited each superpower to one ABM System, which combined radar tracking and missiles. The USSR set up one around Moscow; the U.S. set one up around an IBM missile site in the Great Plains. Neither had any confidence in it.

Thus, the superpowers faced each other with a balance of terror called Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD. So the only way to move toward greater security was to end the arms race and begin dismantling nuclear weapons.

Star Wars Episode 1: Reagan does good despite himself

That was the situation Ronald Reagan faced when he took office in 1981. He didn’t like either option. He wanted to be able to fight and win a nuclear war. Edward Teller and other nuclear cowboys convinced him that there was another option: revive the dream of an impenetrable defensive shield. Thus was born Star Wars, based primarily around Teller’s brainchild called the space-based laser, which didn’t exist and was technologically highly dubious.

After lots of fanfare and money, Star Wars had an ironic and unintended outcome: it led Reagan to propose to Gorbachev in 1985 that both sides begin reducing their arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons. The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START I), was the first treaty ever to call for reductions. Reagan could sell it to the Cold Warriors and the military-industrial complex because it seemed to go along with the U.S. drive for nuclear superiority through effective defense (fewer Soviet missiles would make the defensive task easier). Only the nation lost interest in Star Wars after the Cold War ended, and the work wasn’t showing any technical promise anyway.

Thus, going into the Bush presidency the U.S. was back to its original two options--MAD or disarmament—but now we had started down the path of security through nuclear disarmament. Almost everyone thought we would simply continue until nuclear weapons were abolished.

Star Wars Episode 2: Clinton sells out to the military-industrial complex

Stars Wars research kept getting Congressional appropriations all through the Bush years and Clinton’s early years. Yet, it was merely a welfare system with no real faith in its ability to make any difference. Then, faced with the big Republican Congressional win in 1994, Clinton decided he must co-opt the Republican agenda, especially on military matters. Gingrich’s House of Representatives and the White House started competing for the title of Mr. National Security. Military budgets soared, and the Ballistic Missile Defense System was (re)born.

Both the Republicans in Congress and Clinton put the BMD forward as a shield against a small attack—at most 20 missiles. Nervous about naming China (which has about that many), they adopted a new enemy, "the Rogue state," and said the system was all about preventing North Korea or Iraq or Iran from developing an ICBM and holding us hostage. This is still the official rationale for the BMD, which Clinton says we must hurry to deploy because deployment will take about five years, just the time the Rogues supposedly will be ready to launch a few ICBMs at us.

The BMD System(s) and where it stands now

Clinton’s system will involve a big radar installation in Alaska, and some interceptor missiles. The anti-missile missile is supposed to hit warheads after they have separated from the rocket but while they are still outside the atmosphere. That system will cost a mere $30 billion to build and another $30 billion to operate over its anticipated life span. Clinton argued that his plan will require only modest amendments to the ABM Treaty. When Russia said it would not renegotiate the treaty, Clinton then got his in-house lawyers to say it wouldn’t violate the existing treaty.

The Republicans want a much bigger system; indeed, what they want is full speed ahead on the old Reagan-era Star Wars plan. They want to put weapons in space to destroy missiles right after launch, while the warhead is still on the rocket. They acknowledge that this plan means the end of the ABM Treaty, and they rejoice in that.

Gore and Bush have aligned themselves along the divide between Clinton and the Congressional Republicans.

Early tests of the interceptor system failed; it couldn’t discriminate between the warhead and the decoys. Then the Pentagon dummied down the tests, using just one warhead and one balloon decoy. Its first dummied down test was supposedly successful (there is doubt about the truth of the published claim); the second test earlier this year failed. The next test, scheduled for July 7, may induce Clinton to give some kind of green light to the Pentagon. Failure, of course, will not mean the end of the scheme or its funding, but it may set everything back.

For more information on the system itself, go to the excellent website of the Federation of American Scientists—www.fas.org. To go directly to the BMD entry, use www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nmd.htm