Finally, Missile Defense

Vancouver - - I have been arguing in favor of a missile defense for most of the year. Finally the US is dumping the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile treaty so that they can test out a full potential of the system. It was not the diplomatic “daisy cutter” that some papers and commentators claimed. This is the best Christmas present the people of the United States could ask for.

The treaty was one designed for yesterday’s world-one that has entirely different rules and players. In the Cold War the treaty was able to deal with the two primary actors. One of the actors, Russia, in the immortal words of Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness, “isn’t leading but two things right now: jack and nothing, and jack just left town.” The United States has every right to protect itself.

Today’s world is much different. The Cold War was like the Wild West shootout-one on one, with your opponent in front of you. Today’s world is more like a John Woo film. There is one big Mexican Standoff and it is necessary to put on a bulletproof vest. Everything is much more complex and that requires defense improvements.

Using the events of September 11th to justify the missile defense is slightly flawed. But what it has done is to show exactly the lengths to which individuals and terrorist groups will go to in waging a war upon the civilized world-they are not bound by law, treaties, or morality. It is clear that if they could obtain weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles there no reason to think they wouldn’t use them to kill even more people than they have in the past.

There have been many people in the past who have argued that a missile defense shield would be pointless. It wouldn’t guard against suitcase bombs, cruise missiles, crop dusters, and a dozen other threats. And all of that criticism is true. But that is the worst idea I could think of to not build, and consequently eliminating one threat, a missile defense. Surely we need to prepare for all of these circumstances not just one or worse none of them.

President Bush is guiding the United States into a new world which requires new foreign and defense policies. Anything else would be disappointing and extremely dangerous. It would make the United States vulnerable and undermine a stable world. Missile defense is a needed component to a new homeland security imperative.

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