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Guest Commentary November 8, 2001
Missile Defense Won't Protect U.S. from Nuclear Blackmail
The Honorable Joseph Biden
Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, speaking about a national missile defense system on the Lehrer Newshour earlier this year, said that a system would not have to be ninety or even eighty percent effective, but only seventy-percent effective.
Secretary Rumsfeld, in referring to a .7 success rate, said, and I quote, "That's plenty."
Folks, 30% failure for any national defense system could be called plenty of things, but plenty successful isn't one of them.
Think about it. Let's say Richard Ryan becomes President and the head of a rogue state tells him, "I'm invading my neighbor today, and if you try to stop me, I'll fire my ICBM's at you."
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Never mind that he won't do that, because he knows we would annihilate his country in response.
President Ryan turns to his national security adviser, Carl Weiser, and says: "What do I do?" And Carl says: "Don't worry, we have a missile defense. And it's 90-percent effective."
President Ryan says: "Oh? There's a 10 percent chance of losing Detroit?" And Carl says: "That depends. If they fire seven missiles, the odds of losing at least one city will be 50-50."
President Ryan says: "And I'm supposed to feel I have 'freedom of action' thanks to this defense?" And Carl says: "Hey look, Rumsfeld told Jim Lehrer that 70-percent effectiveness would be enough, at least initially. With that system, there's a 50-50 chance of losing at least one city even if that rogue state fires only two missiles."
The American people get it. They know that a real-world missile defense could save lives if we were ever attacked, but that it would not free the President from nuclear blackmail.
Think about it. We will have spent up to five-hundred billion dollars for a system that might work nine out of ten times – assuming the Administration knew how to build it...
One that won't give the President freedom of action, one that won't give the Pentagon what it really needs, won't modernize our conventional forces...all without being able to say, "yes, we've saved Social Security for one more day."
Sure, we'll do all we can to defend ourselves against any threat. Nobody denies that. But even the Joint Chiefs say a strategic nuclear attack is less likely than regional conflicts, or major theater wars or terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
We will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship, or the belly of a plane or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack.
The truth is, technology will keep outpacing our capability to build an effective system which may well be obsolete or penetrable by the time its done. And that means we'll continually increase our capability and, in turn, so will those who are trying to penetrate it....
....And so, a new arms race begins.
Joseph Biden, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Delaware. The above commentary has been adapted from a speech Sen. Biden delivered before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., September 10, 2001. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
