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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (15597)	6/11/1998 12:33:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

Hey Christine! Remember those dopes that thought Reagan's missile defense was a waste of money? (Despite the fact that RR skillfully used the threat to bring down the Russians and end the Cold War!). Well, as Safire says, just proves that Reagan was once again ahead of his time: The center of gravity in the old "Star Wars" debate has moved. Ronald Reagan turns out not to have been deranged on defense -- only ahead of his time. For those concerned about our new vulnerability, the trick is not to adopt a nyah-nyah, told-you-so posture, but to give proponents of the old strategy a graceful exit citing changed circumstances. "There is absolutely no question the nation will have missile defense in the future," Dr. Jacques Gansler, a top Clinton Defense official, has said. "The question is when." The threat is here. The money is there. The answer is now. June 11, 1998 ESSAY / WILLIAM SAFIRE Stop the 'Incoming!' WASHINGTON -- For years, when hawkish Republicans uttered the phrase "missile defense," dovish Democrats would respond with a derisive Bronx cheer: "Star Wars! Pie in the sky! Cost too much and would never work!" Partisan positions froze and debate was paralyzed. Tens of billions were spent on research just to keep our hand in but with no hope of actually defending the nation against incoming nuclear missiles. Democrats asked, with some reason: How in the world could we build a foolproof shield in the sky against 10,000 Soviet missiles? Wasn't it wiser to rely on the threat of mutual suicide that served us so well during the cold war? But circumstances changed. The threat is now no longer an overwhelming rain of missiles from Russia, but only a dozen or 20 from rogue states or terrorist groups. That's more manageable. Opponents of missile defense then tried a different argument: A shield in the sky would not stop a terrorist from sneaking a bomb into the U.S. in a suitcase. True enough, and methods of detecting smuggled nuclear and germ weapons need refinement. But nations like China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, India and Pakistan have not been investing heavily in suitcases. For some reason, they have been spending national treasure on long-range missiles, swapping know-how, importing hungry Russian scientists, buying or stealing American missile-guidance technology. From this we may deduce that the preferred method of delivery is a missile, and that a monomaniacal dictator or a terrorist with little to lose would not be deterred, as Soviet leaders were, by the assurance of massive retaliation. As the nuclear club expands and as missiles become cheaper and rangier, the threat increases of an accidental launch -- or of an unintended missile headed our way during a nuclear war among other countries. What could we do about it? At the moment, nothing. Most Americans do not realize that our armed forces have no way of stopping the most likely weapon to be used against us. We spend a quarter-trillion dollars a year for defense and it buys the population of American cities zero defense against missiles. Why do we allow this terrible anomaly to exist? Some die-hard doves insist that our debatable 1972 ABM treaty with the defunct Soviet Union locks us in forever to "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) -- even as Boris Yeltsin prepares to run for a third term on the theory that Russia is not the Soviet Union. President Clinton, mired in decade-old rhetoric, still professes to see that treaty as the "cornerstone of strategic stability." Senator Carl Levin of Michigan argues, incredibly, that no defense is needed because the C.I.A. would give us three years' warning of any threat. Those are the same spooks who assured us in 1990 that Saddam Hussein was 10 years away from a nuclear device (postwar inspection showed it had been less than one year), and the same who were caught flatfooted last month by India's blasts. But we are beginning to see evidence of a paradigm shift in the thinking of both sides about the threat of "incoming." Last week, as Senator Levin led a filibuster against missile defense, only a bare minimum of 40 Democrats enabled him to block the will of a growing Senate bipartisan majority. Even within the Clinton Defense Department, support is growing for deploying the Navy's Aegis fleet air defense system, a step toward serious missile defense. Secretary Bill Cohen's choice for chief technical adviser, the former NASA hand Hans Mark, was welcomed last week by Senate Armed Services as the harbinger of a new Administration attitude toward countering missile dangers. The center of gravity in the old "Star Wars" debate has moved. Ronald Reagan turns out not to have been deranged on defense -- only ahead of his time. For those concerned about our new vulnerability, the trick is not to adopt a nyah-nyah, told-you-so posture, but to give proponents of the old strategy a graceful exit citing changed circumstances. "There is absolutely no question the nation will have missile defense in the future," Dr. Jacques Gansler, a top Clinton Defense official, has said. "The question is when." The threat is here. The money is there. The answer is now. nytimes.com