Despite a 15-year history of Democratic opposition to the expenditure of billions of dollars (some estimates ran in excess of one trillion dollars) on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Clinton administration has offered support for a program aimed at protecting the United States from attack by "rogue nations." (USA Today-3/18/99) Fear of attack by China, North Korea and other potential nuclear renegades seemed to have softened Democratic opposition. The Clinton NMD (National Missile Defense) program is designed to stop many fewer warheads than the Reagan SDI program and as a result its estimated price tag is a mere sixty billion dollars. The military believes that such a laser-based system could be operational by 2005. The proponents of the program contend that it will be possible to use satellite-based lasers to destroy incoming nuclear missiles.
Many commentators have expressed serious doubts about the need or cost effectiveness of such a program: "Star Wars is the perfect case study for what's wrong with both American government and the American military. It has everything: special interests, campaign contributions, the military-industrial complex, supine politicians, lazy media, decisions being made solely for political calculation, decisions having nothing to do with national security, and a public to whom no one has bothered to tell the truth." (Molly Ivins-Minneapolis Star-3-19-99)
Several respected military experts believe that Star Wars is a political concoction and not a cost effective missile defense system. Some of them have drawn the comparison between the eventual failure of this system with the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980's. "...You can see the disaster coming-you can see it in front of your eyes-and they still won't stop it. It has the potential to be the most expensive white elephant in history."
A study conducted by three well known strategic weapons experts concluded that the greatest accomplishment of the first four years of SDI research (during the Reagan administration) consisted in learning what did not work, which included spaced-based laser weapons. ("The Atomic Audit" by John Pike, Bruce Blair and S. Schwartz) We are still proceeding with this program despite the reality that during the 1990's 7 out of 9 major system tests failed. The most effective results of the continuing research have been the dramatic artist's portrayals of how the program will work. (Ballistic Missile Defense- http://www.missilethreat.org/laframe.html ) The current use of animated films supporting the deployment of ballistic missile defense systems has come under serious scrutiny. These presentations allegedly developed by neutral, nonpartisan think tanks turn out to be funded by the aerospace industry.
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