July - August 2000

Invulnerable Shield or Costly Illusion?

July 7 Test Failure Intensifies Debate About Feasibility and Wisdom of Deployment

The failure of the Pentagon’s third and final test of the anti-ballistic missile system has raised a chorus of criticism about the viability of the entire idea. Since President Reagan first mounted his Strategic Defense Initiative in the early 80’s, the U.S. has spent $30 billion without producing a single usable device.

But pressured by election-year politics, President Clinton is considering giving a “limited green light” to BMD in order to complete construction of a $60 billion initial system by 2005. Dismissing the Clinton plan, George W. Bush is proposing a globe-girdling system to protect our European and Asian allies as well. Al Gore says Bush’s plan won’t defend us but will destroy half a century of arms control.

BMD is the hottest foreign policy debate of this year's elections. These are the key issues:

• Would it work? Independent physicists, including former top Pentagon antimissile researchers, say that with just 100 seconds to distinguish between a real warhead and a blizzard of cheap decoys, the technical challenges are insurmountable. Can a bullet hit a bullet in a hailstorm of bullets in space?
  
  
• What will it cost? The Clinton administration says $60 billion for the initial deployment; the General Accounting Office says $120 billion. Will we be able to meet other urgent needs if we build BMD?
  
  
• How real is the threat from “rogue states”? The chief threat cited by BMD advocates is North Korea, an impoverished, famine-stricken nation with no known allies. North Korea is said to be building a missile capable of reaching the U.S. by 2005. But facing an overwhelming counterattack, what would motivate them to launch one? Why wouldn’t they just use a suitcase bomb?
  
  
• What will be its impact on arms control treaties? Even the limited system proposed by the President would require breaking out of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the linchpin of arms control. Russia has declared that if the treaty is broken, it will refuse to honor all existing treaties that reduce nuclear stockpiles. China has already warned that if we deploy BMD, they will expand their nuclear arsenals so they can still penetrate our shield. Where would it end?
  
  
• Why does no other nation support the idea? We can expect opposition from adversaries, but even our NATO allies believe BMD is a bad idea. All say it is strategically destabilizing and is likely to trigger a new global arms race. Is this the wisest use of our wealth and power?
  

In July and August, MMP mounted a major public education campaign on the proposed ballistic missile defense system. What was most unusual about this campaign was both the proportion of syndicated interviews – over half – and the range of media in which they occurred – not only radio but large numbers of top tier TV and print outlets. In all, we scheduled 277 radio, television, print, and Internet interviews. Of these, 155 were nationally or globally syndicated. More than two-thirds of the radio interviews occurred on commercial stations, where global security issues are seldom given an informed airing. Some 39 nationally known authorities representing dozens of NGOs were interviewed on such topics as the technical feasibility of the program, its strategic and political implications, cost and budget issues, and impacts on nuclear non-proliferation.

Guest Speakers by Topic:

Lisbeth Gronlund, Senior Staff Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists

John Pike, Director, Global Security.org

Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Joseph Cirincione, Senior Associate and Director of the Non-Proliferation Project, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Natalie Goldring, Executive Director - Program on Global Security and Disarmament - Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Susan Eisenhower, President, The Eisenhower Institute, Founder and Chairman, Center for Political and Strategic Studies

Thomas E. Graham, Senior Associate - Russia/Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for Peace

John Steinbruner, Professor of Public Policy, Director - Center for International and Security Studies, Maryland School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland

Karl Grossman, Professor of Journalism, State University of New York, Old Westbury, Author, The Wrong Stuff: Nukes in Space

Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, U.S. House of Representatives

Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research

Alice Slater, President, Global Resource Action for the Environment

Frances FitzGerald, Independent Journalist, Author, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam; American Revisited: History of Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century; Cities on a Hill: A Journey through Contemporary American Cultures

Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute

Michael Krepon, President Emeritus, Henry L. Stimson Center

Stephen Young, Deputy Director, Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation

Charles Ferguson, Director, Nuclear Policy Project, Federation of American Scientists

Zia Mian, Physicist, Research Associate - Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University

Merav Datan, Director, UN Office, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Jonathan Dean, Adviser on International Security, Union of Concerned Scientists

Alistair Millar, Vice President, Fourth Freedom Forum

M.V. Ramana, Physicist, Research Staff Member - Program on Science & Global Security, Princeton University

Tim Savage, Security Program Officer, The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development

Leon Sigal, Director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, Social Science Research Council

William Hartung, President's Fellow - New School, World Policy Institute

John Isaacs, Executive Director, Council for a Livable World

Stephen Schwartz, Publisher, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Executive Director, Educational Foundation For Nuclear Science

Bruce Blair, President, Center for Defense Information

Wade Boese, Senior Research Analyst, Arms Control Association

James Bush, Associate Director, Center for Defense Information , Director, Congressional Relations

Joseph Cartwright, Department of Defense, Washington,DC

Leonard Cole, Adjunct Professor in Political Science, Rutgers University

Ralph DeGennaro, Former Executive Director, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Alise Frye, National Security Project Director and Space Policy Analyst, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Peter Hayes, Co-Director, Nautilus Institute for Security & Sustainable Development

Daryl Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association

Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

George Lewis, Associate Director - Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jack Mendelsohn, Senior Associate, Center for Defense Information

Paul Newman

George Perkovich, Vice President of Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Jonathan Schell, Journalist

Mike Shuster

Jon Wolfsthal, Carnegie Endowment for International peace

Lynn Woolsey