When George W. Bush ran for President he promised to do everything possible to build the NMD, the national missile defense system. The following article describes the opposition to this decision:
The Rumsfeld Commission issued a report in 1998, while Bill Clinton was President that now seems eerily prophetic:
Concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces and its friends and allies. These newer, developing threats in North Korea, Iran and Iraq are in addition to those still posed by the existing ballistic missile arsenals of Russia and China, nations with which the United States is not now in conflict but which remain in uncertain transitions. The newer ballistic missile-equipped nations’ capabilities will not match those of U.S. systems for accuracy or reliability. However, they would be able to inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability (10 years in the case of Iraq). During several of those years, the U.S. might not be aware that such a decision had been made.
Liberals dismissed this as nonsense. Their plan was to wait until we knew for sure someone was building a threat, then we would make a mad dash to build a defense system. Rumsfeld pointed out, correctly, that we might not get five years notice. In addition, five years might not be enough.
When George W Bush announced his decision to pursue NMD, Democrats were opposed 56% to 41%, while Republicans supported it 60% to 37%.
Al Gore was opposed to NMD. He was in the class of people who wanted to wait and then build a smaller, more efficient system:
http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Al_Gore_Defense.htm
I strongly believe that if Al Gore had been elected President in 2000 he would have significantly cut spending for NMD.
I favor an effort to develop a limited missile defense system and not a massive “star wars” system because our country will probably face a new threat later in this decade from a small arsenal of relatively unsophisticated ICBMs in the hands of a rogue state. [Bush’s proposed] much larger, space-based star wars approach is far more difficult to design and build, far more expensive to purchase, less likely to work, and is calculated to destroy existing arms control arrangements with the Russians.
This would have been consistent with the Clinton administration who was afraid to cancel the program outright, but who instead tried to back burner it:
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_09/clintonnmd
President Bill Clinton announced September 1 that he would not proceed with deployment of the planned limited national missile defense (NMD). Speaking at Georgetown University, the president highlighted concerns about the system’s technology, which he described as “not yet proven,” and diplomatic opposition to the missile defense, including close NATO allies, as reasons behind his decision. The president said he believed his action, which will leave an NMD deployment decision to the next administration, was in “the best security interest of the United States.”
Fortunately for everyone, George W. Bush, not Al Gore, was elected President of the United States in 2000 and he was determined to build the NMD. In a major speech on May 1, 2001, Bush outlined the danger:
Unlike the Cold War, today’s most urgent threat stems not from thousands of ballistic missiles in the Soviet hands, but from a small number of missiles in the hands of these states, states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life.
He boldly announced that the United States would withdraw from the obsolete ABM treaty:
We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today’s world. To do so, we must move beyond the constraints of the 30-year-old ABM Treaty. This treaty does not recognize the present, or point us to the future. It enshrines the past. No treaty that prevents us from addressing today’s threats, that prohibits us from pursuing promising technology to defend ourselves, our friends and our allies is in our interests or in the interests of world peace.
His decision to put maximum effort to develop the NMD was met with withering criticism from top Democrats.
Senator Joe Biden scoffed at some future threat from North Korea. He thought it “specious” to believe that:
one day [North Korean President] Kim Jong-il or someone will wake up one morning and say, �Aha, San Francisco!’
Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening.
Senator Tom Daschle was convinced that:
the president may be buying a lemon here. I don’t know how you support the deployment of a program that doesn’t work.
Senator John Kerry thought this would just set off another arms race:
“If you can’t shoot down 100% of them [incoming missiles], you haven’t gotten rid of mutually assured destruction. And if you can, you set off an arms race to develop a capacity that can’t be touched by a missile defense system.”
House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said that:
By announcing his intent to move forward with as yet unproven, costly and expansive national missile defense systems, the President is jeopardizing an arms control framework that has served this nation and the world well for decades.
As soon as President Obama was elected he changed focus with regard to the NMD. The following article from the Council on Foreign Relations explains this:
http://www.cfr.org/defense-strategy/national-missile-defense-status-report/p18792
Since the election of President Barack Obama, however, the future of anti-missile defense has grown less certain (Arms Control Association). The Obama administration has framed its national missile defense strategy with the caveat that continued support will be contingent on pragmatic and cost-effective technological advances and will “not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public.” Missile defense experts interpret these statements to suggest the pace of development will slow (CQ), since the technologies have repeatedly failed in field tests.
This was a return to the Clinton doctrine of pretending to develop a NMD system while actually slowing down the pace of development. Democrats never want to admit that are opposed to the NMD, they just seem to find one excuse after another to never actually implement it.
According to Forbes, Obama severely cut back the deployment of the NMD:
Reversing an earlier Obama administration decision, the Pentagon has now budgeted $1 billion to expand our West Coast-based missile defense system. Newly-appointed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has announced plans to deploy 14 more ground-based long-range missile interceptors in Fort Greely, Alaska by 2017. This will supplement the 30 already existing on the West Coast. The reasoning he offered was: “The United States has missile defense systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM attacks…but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations.”
The U.S. could have already had those 14 more interceptors in place, along with another 10 in Europe next year. The Bush administration deployed the first ground-based interceptor (GBI) in 2004, and had planned to deploy a total of 54. In 2009, Obama pulled the plug on that plan, and cut GBI deployment to just 30.
President Obama also mothballed or killed several other missile defense development programs. This included a scale-back of the Airborne Laser program to enable enemy missile interceptions during their early launch phase, along with the elimination of the Multiple Kill Vehicle and Kinetic Energy Interceptor which uses small warheads on a single rocket to handle decoys and offer a better chance of success. Obama’s 2010 defense budget cut $1.4 billion from the Missile Defense Agency.
North Korea has launched a three stage missile that put an object in orbit. Obviously if you can put something in orbit, you can reach anywhere in the world. That, unfortunately, includes the U.S. It is important to understand that this would not need to be very accurate. Many experts claim that the detonation of a relatively small nuclear weapon designed to deliver an EMP explosion at high altitude over the United States has the potential to inflict devastating damage. It also doesn’t have to involve several missiles. One lucky shot would do an unbelievable amount of damage.
If we had listened to people like Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, and Dick Gephardt odds are pretty high that we wouldn’t have much of a defense at all. Now President Obama is declaring that if North Korea launches a missile we can defend ourselves. I hope he is right. If he is, then he better get down on his knees and thank God for the wisdom, courage and determination of George W. Bush.
At the moment, it looks like North Korea is planning to launch at least one and possible more missiles. They have launched “test” missiles in the past. But the problem is that they time they claim they are going to attack us with a nuclear weapon. If the U.S. did not think there was any risk, then why move missile defense facilities to South Korea and Guam. Why suddenly rush to install 14 more ground interceptors? If we move real quick, we can have them up and running by 2017. I’m sure North Korea will be willing to wait.
What if there is any chance, no matter how small, that North Korea could deliver a nuclear weapon to explode in our upper atmosphere. Can we risk any chance of that happening? Is the administration willing to let North Korea launch a missile and hope it is either aimed someplace else, or hope it is just a test, or hope it doesn’t really have a nuclear warhead? What if we try to shoot it down and miss?
What if they launch a missile, it appears to be a genuine threat, but it malfunctions or we shoot it own. Do we just ignore this and express outrage?
What if we launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea and destroy those sites before anything can be launched. That would pretty much eliminate the threat of a nuclear assault, but at what cost? That could easily set off another Korean War. North Korea has thousands of artillery units ready, willing and able to wreak havoc on the Seoul metropolitan area. Many experts predict that such a conflict could end up costing over 1 million casualties. When you add in the factor of China building up troops on the North Korean border, this is a very serious situation.
I don’t know if there is a good answer. The only thing I know is this. We all owe President Bush a huge debt of gratitude. In spite of overwhelming opposition from the cultured elite and the liberal left, Bush ordered the NMD and he pushed for it every day of his Presidency. Thanks to George W. Bush, we have options. If we had listened to Democrats we probably wouldn’t have any options at all. I wonder if anyone in the main stream media will figure that out.
TDM