No Weapons in Space

PRESIDENT BUSH'S announcement last week at the United Nations ended too soon. Just when the logic of disarmament seemed to have entered his mind, he forgot to drop Star Wars.

As the United States shows signs once again of pursuing a sensible route to world peace, Bush blew a big chance to back up his rhetoric of a New World Order. Now more than ever, the reasons for the development and deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) are negligible.

No longer are we confronted by a Brezhnevian Soviet Union waiting to pounce. Through the Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement (INF) and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the United States and the Soviet Union have begun to pursue the most logical path out of the Cold War--disarmament.

Proponents of SDI now point to the "rapidly proliferating" Third World as a source of instability. Currently, 14 developing countries have short-range ballistic missiles; the Bush administration claims that the number might rise to 24 within a decade.

Bush's scenario? The peeved leader of a Third World country decides to nuke the good ol' U.S. of A. Fortunately, as the missile streams toward Milwaukee, a "brilliant pebble" comes to life and annihilates the transgressor missile, thus saving Milwaukee, the Brewers and world peace. Of course, the U.S. military moves in and cleans up the offending nation, reestablishing democracy and brotherly love.

UNFORTUNATELY, BUSH'S view of things doesn't lend itself well to reality. Anyone wishing to detonate a nuclear bomb in the United States would have a much easier time just flying into LaGuardia and detonating the explosive in downtown New York City.

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, all this will cost less than $1 million for each unit. Not.

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.

The obstacle posed by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, it seems, is no longer a serious one. Bush will offer food aid for the Soviets to entice them to ignore the treaty. The Russians won't starve, and Bush will get his toy (losing any moral high ground he has left by manipulating a nation on the brink of starvation).

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

SDI should no longer be an issue of left or right, Democratic or Republican. It is a solution that doesn't work to a problem which doesn't exist costing a great deal of money we don't have in a world where it doesn't belong.

Let's scrap it.

Will devices floating in space really make us safe?