LAST WEEK the USS Lake Erie, a cruiser equipped with the advanced Aegis radar system, successfully tracked and intercepted a ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean in the latest test of U.S. ballistic missile defense capabilities. The test of the SM-3 interceptor marked the fifth time in six tries the system shot down the mock enemy missile and provides compelling evidence of the growing success of experimental missile defense. Despite criticisms of high costs and technical infeasibility, the United States must continue to develop and implement a national missile defense to counter growing worldwide threats.
Contrary to popular belief, missile defense is not an imperialistic pet project of the neo-conservative right. In 1999, President Clinton signed the National Missile Defense Act and pledged the United States. would implement a missile defense system "as soon as is technologically possible." Unfortunately, a year later, Clinton chose to delay construction and this decision, combined with others made by the Clinton administration, effectively killed any national missile defense program and shifted the burden of reducing U.S. vulnerability to missile threats to Clinton's successor.
Under President Bush, ballistic missile defense has begun to enter a golden era. In 2002, Bush withdrew the U.S. from the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, an archaic agreement between the two great powers of the Cold War that constrained the U.S. from defending itself from emerging threats.
In many ways, the threat of ballistic missile attack is even greater now than it was during the Cold War. With the Soviet Union, the threat was transparent and deterrable through mutually assured destruction. In the 21st Century, however, the list of nuclear or near-nuclear nations perfecting ballistic missile technology is frightening: China, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and assuredly others to follow. Merely the existence of potentially hostile nations with nuclear and ballistic missile technology silences critics' arguments that there is no need for missile defense.
Another popular -- and false -- criticism of missile defense is that the technology doesn't work. While there have been several well-publicized failed tests of various components of the missile defense system, there have been an overwhelming number of successful tests in the past few years. The ground-based phase of ballistic missile defense, developed by Boeing Co., has recorded five successful shoot downs in eight tests. In addition, current technological infeasibility is a terrible argument against missile defense. One hundred years ago no would have dreamed of the fighter jet, the cruise missile or any number of the modern military wonders that today seem commonplace. So to simply give up on missile defense is tantamount to saying the U.S. should give up on technological innovation period.
Critics of missile defense also argue that such systems are inherently destabilizing, especially as the U.S. seeks to end proliferation and reign in maverick, nuclear regimes. Yet three years ago, after announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, President Bush signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia to greatly reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads possessed by Russia and the U.S.Therefore it's absurd to suggest that missile defense and arms reduction are incompatible.
Perhaps the best argument for a national missile defense system is the lack of prevailing and worthwhile counterargument. Ballistic missiles that can be tipped with nuclear, biological or chemical warheads in the hands of hostile nations represent a grave and growing threat to the security interests of the United States. and its allies. In the Cold War, the threat of mutually assured destruction left the U.S. with few options with regards to missile defense. But now that era has passed and so have its threats, which have been replaced by more dynamic and certainly less transparent dangers. No, the technology is not perfect and the financial burden is high, but such hurdles have not stopped the U.S. from protecting its domestic and foreign interests in the past.
Years and years of complacency and aversion to committing the time and resources needed to counter the threat of global terrorism led to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. must continue to test and implement ballistic missile defense to ensure that that these same two factors do not again leave us vulnerable to attack.
Joe Schilling's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jschilling@cavalierdaily.com.
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