Word: sdi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Bush's scenario depends, of course, on the offending nation being able to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, aiming technology, and nuclear weapons--and then getting all of them to work. Even then, SDI could be easily thwarted. "Brilliant pebbles" might be able to bring down Soviet strategic missiles flying against the dark of space, but would have trouble tracking a low-flying missile against a warm, crowded earth--the very weapons Third World countries would use. The development of SDI technology also requires a computer the size of a cigarette pack, but with the power of a Cray supercomputer. Supposedly...
Other proposed missile technology defenses would be far too costly to install in every city of every state--and there's no guarantee that missile technology will work. The example of the Patriot missile merely diverting a Scud into a U.S. Army base underlines the irrationality of SDI. Most nuclear missiles discharge their war-heads (and decoys) long before entering the range of ground-based missiles, making defense systems impotent in a low-altitude nuclear confrontations...
PERHAPS MORE important than the limitations of technology is the backwardness of the philosophy behind SDI. The project is mired in the Reaganesque notion of world safety through arms build-ups rather than through arms reduction. Maybe nuclear peace has been kept through the perilous Cold War by the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, but the post-Cold War demands something better...
Continuing SDI will set a poor example to the developing nations of the world--the ones we want to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (universal acceptance of which would eliminate any need for SDI). And it will send bad signals to our allies, too. The future of the United States is closely tied to the futures of the European Community and Japan, and probably whatever is left of the Soviet Union. If we flout world peace, we will lose the trust of these nations...
Over $23 billion has been spent on SDI since 1985--enough money to create a Marshall Plan of sorts for Eastern Europe, or pay for the expansion of unemployment compensation plus a superconducting supercollider. Or we could reduce the federal deficit by $3 billion this year and for the next 10 or 20. It could even send about 920,000 undergraduates to Harvard...