Missile Defense System is Useless Against Terrorists Essay -- Septembe

A Missile Defense System is Useless Against Terrorists Donald Rumsfeld, was confirmed as Secretary of Defense with barely a whimper from the media. Rumsfeld's career in public service has been a lengthy one including serving as a former ambassador to NATO, a Congressman, and Secretary of Defense under the Ford administration from 1975 to 1977. But Rumsfeld's claim to fame is that he headed a 1998 Congressional panel that identified a growing threat of ballistic missile attack from rogue nations such as North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. Identifying the possibility of a real threat in the next five years, the report endorsed the development of a ballistic missile defense system to protect the U.S. from such attacks. America should want to protect itself from rogue nations bent on wreaking havoc. Who doesn't want to raise a shield against the mistakes and intentions of a dangerous world? But aside from the fact that most of the intelligence community believes that such a threat does not exist and will not for at least fifteen years, there is also one serious problem with a national missile defense system: It doesn't work. In the last two decades alone, the United States government has invested over $130 billion on Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" dream. With Bush at the helm, the U.S. appears poised to invest billions more. What has $130 billion and the valuable time of the military-industry complex given us? A system that is unable to reliably shoot a single, low-speed missile out of the sky. Nothing suggests that this system will work. The optimism exhibited by its advocates distorts the truth. The military has had to admit that the Patriot missile defense system, which was initially her... ...ses the treaty as "ancient history." At a time when Russia is becoming increasingly angry with the U.S.'s imperialist actions ‚ so much that they have threatened to withdraw from future arms control talks ‚ the last thing the U.S. should do is make an enemy out of a nation with one of the world's largest nuclear stockpiles. There are many serious threats to national security that demand our attention. In the post-Cold War era, the answers are complicated and require careful consideration. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld and the Bush administration have chosen a winning political sound byte which fails miserably in real life. We should focus on worldwide arms reduction. If Rumsfeld has his way, we may live in a far more dangerous world of anxious nuclear powers that engage in offensive-defensive arms races and keep their fingers on the nuclear button.