KILLER satellites, nuclear-powered lasers and interceptor missiles鈥攖he
front line of George W. Bush鈥檚 Fortress America may sound a little familiar.
Yes, Ronald Reagan鈥檚 Star Wars project is back.
During the campaign, Bush made it clear that his administration is likely to
invest heavily in space-based missile defence technology to protect the US and
its allies from nuclear attack. His choice for defence secretary, Donald H.
Rumsfeld, is an enthusiastic supporter of missile defence.
鈥淧resident-elect Bush鈥檚 appointment shows we鈥檒l move forward with missile
defence in a very serious way,鈥� says Jack Spencer, defence policy analyst for
the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that supports missile
defence.
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Critics claim such missile defence systems are unreliable and destabilising.
And it鈥檚 not yet clear how far the Bush administration will go in deploying one,
because they are constrained by arms control agreements
(see 鈥淔arewell to arms control鈥�).
But Bush is likely to spend billions of dollars researching the technology. 鈥淗e鈥檚 talking
about global coverage. You can only do that from space,鈥� says Tom Collina of the
Union of Concerned 快猫短视频s, a pressure group in Washington DC that opposes
missile defence.
It was 1983 when Reagan proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI)鈥攕oon dubbed Star Wars. As much as $60 billion is thought to
have been spent on research, until Congressional criticism and the thawing of
the Cold War led George Bush senior to scale back the programme in 1991.
Rumsfeld鈥檚 appointment is a clear sign of SDI鈥檚 rebirth. He held positions in
the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. In 1998, he chaired a commission
that called for a Star Wars-style system to defend the US from missile attacks
by 鈥渞ogue nations鈥� such as North Korea and Iraq.
That commission added new impetus to the National Missile Defense system, the
Pentagon鈥檚 relatively modest plan to use interceptor missiles to shoot down any
incoming nuclear warheads. While Clinton demurred on deploying NMD, Bush may now
go ahead, although Congress could oppose him. They are less likely to fight new
funding鈥攑ossibly several billion dollars a year鈥攆or developing
technologies that would promise true space-based defence.
