A Star Wars Program Is Reborn.

There is also the question as to whether a NMD is a stabilizing or destabilizing weapons system. If it is possible that you can develop such a system, does it force your international competitors into pre-emptive behavior patterns? If we could deploy a fool proof system would our success mandate a mandatory pre-emptive attack from our "rogue nations? Since the development of this program violates the ABM treaty concluded with the Soviet Union, will Russian president Putin be forced back into an arms race with the United States?

China has indicated that her missile program will not "sit still" and watch this deployment continue. The May-June 1997 issue of Technology Review concluded: "that a country that could develop a long-range missile could also deploy a number of simple counter-measures that would make the job of defense much more difficult, if not impossible."

In short, the official Clinton/Gore Administration position on NMD is that we should jeopardize the best chance in a generation to reduce the world's nuclear arsenals in order to preserve the option to deploy a costly, technically dubious scheme designed to defend against a Third World missile threat that does not currently exist and may not ever materialize. To understand how we got into this mess, we need to take a look at the genesis, "death" and resurrection of Reagan's Star Wars dream. (Star Wars II: Here We Go Again.- http://www.thenation.com/issue/000619/06... )

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