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WORLD POLICY JOURNAL ARTICLE: Volume XV, No 3, FALL 1998
Reagan Redux:
The Enduring Myth of Star Wars America is in the midst of a full-fledged,bipartisan bout of nostalgia for the glory days of Ronald Reagan. The signs are everywhere. On the Democratic side,President Clinton has decided to kick "unworthy" single mothers off welfare.On the Republican side, there is the "Contract With America," a hodgepodge of Reaganite ideas that is capped by the suggestion that we move with alldue haste to deploy Reagan's favorite weapons scheme, the Star Wars missiledefense systemówhether it works or not. In addition, the Gipper has had large machines and sprawling tractsof infrastructure named after him. For weapons buffs, there is the RonaldReagan aircraft carrier, which could end up as the most expensivecombat ship ever built. And for anyone who can still scrape up the changeto fly the shuttle from New York to Washington, there is the bracingexperience of hearing the pilot say, "We are now beginning our descentinto Ronald Reagan National Airport." What are we to make of this longingfor the return of the Reaganesque? Is it just that we want a "reassuring"presence back at the helmósomeone who, like Reagan, could run up the biggest budget deficits in the history of the Republic and still maintain his reputationas a fiscal conservative? Or have we simply exhausted the possibilitiesof `60s and `70s nostalgia, so that it is now time for the 1980s to haveits moment in the sun? Perhaps we can begin to answer these questions by examining the fateof one of the more expensive bits of Reagan memorabilia, the StrategicDefense Initiative (SDI), popularly known as the Star Wars program. Reagan'sdream of a high-tech shield to protect against incoming ballistic missilesis alive and well. The original Star Wars visionóa multi-tiered systemof weapons and sensors that could simultaneously destroy thousands of Sovietmissilesóhas been superseded by the more modest goal of protecting thenation against an accidental missile launch by China or Russia, or deliberateattacks by so-called rogue states like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea (noneof which currently have missiles that can reach U.S. soil). In keepingwith this diminished mission, the 1990s version of Reagan's dream has beenrenamed the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program. Like the B-2 bomber,which House Budget Committee chairman John Kasich has dubbed the "Draculaweapon" for its remarkable ability to escape the budget cutter's ax, theStar Wars program is currently rolling merrily along, impervious to technicalglitches, cost overruns, and massive shifts in the geopolitical landscape. This aspect of the Star Wars projectóitsproponents' unflappable optimism, coupled with a stubborn disregard ofhard factsómakes it the perfect monument to Ronald Reagan. Star Wars:
Impotent and Obsolete? The problems with the original Star Wars vision went beyond the failureof individual components to meet minimum performance requirements. Thewhole concept was fatally flawed. As Canadian computer expert David Parnaspointed out just two years after Reagan's 1983 Star Wars speech, managinga battle that would involve targeting tens of thousands of incoming missiles,warheads, and decoys without error is beyond the capability of any computersoftware system. Even a .1 percent failure rate in intercepting incomingnuclear weapons could mean the annihilation of one or more major Americancities. Parnas was so convinced of the futility of the Star Wars plan thathe resigned his position as a member of SDI's battle management advisory panel.That same year, in 1985, the physicists David Wright and Lisbeth Gronlundorganized a campaign in which over 7,200 scientists and engineers signeda "pledge of non-participation" in Star Wars research on the grounds that it was a fraudulent and dangerous program.This was all the more remarkable when one considers that the Pentagon wasoffering to give university-based scientists millions of dollars in researchfunds to explore missile defense technologies.2 The daunting technical obstacles to fielding an effective missile defensecombined with the end of the Cold War to cool the U.S. government's ardorfor Reagan's Star Wars plan. By the early 1990s, missile defense was anafterthought on the nation's security agenda. Yet the Pentagon and themilitary services have continued to pour research and development moneydown the drain in the quixotic quest for missile defenses. According toStephen Schwartz of the Brookings Institution, the United States has spent$55 billion on missile defense in the 15 years since Reagan launched SDI,with precious little to show for it.3 Thefact that the goal of the program is now far less ambitious than Reagan'soriginal vision of an impenetrable shield that would protect against thousandsof incoming missiles has not measurably improved its potential for success.Blocking a few stray missiles should be easier than blunting a coordinatedattack involving tens of thousands of warheads. But to borrow a phrasethat Lockheed Martin's chairman Norman Augustine used in a different context,the missile defense program is still "unblemished by success." As Bradley Graham of the Washington Post reported in a front-page articlethat ran on April 27 of this year, the best known Star Wars component,a "hit-to-kill" vehicle designed to intercept incoming missiles well beforethey reach U.S. territory, has failed in seven of nine tests conductedin this decade.4 Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin's Theater High Altitude AreaDefense (THAAD) program, a sort of super Patriot missile designed to defendagainst medium-range ballistic missiles, is zero for five in tests conductedto date.5 A panel of independent experts appointed by the Pentagon and headedby former air force chief of staff Larry Welch warned in a report issuedthis past February that the entire ballistic missile defense effort wason a headlong "rush to failure" because of pressure by Congress to deploya system before adequate testing has been done.6The Welch Commission's warnings echo those issued nearly 20 years ago bythe outgoing secretary of defense, Harold Brown, to the incoming Reaganadministration regarding the over hyped missile defense efforts of thatera. But the issue of whether or not Star Wars can actually work does notappear to be uppermost in the thinking of its proponents. In August 1993,Tim Weiner of the New York Times revealed that the army had rigged a key1984 Star Wars test by planting a remote-controlled explosive in the targetmissile that would cause it blow up on cue whether or not it was hit bythe interceptor missile. When Weiner revealed this monstrous deception,former Reagan administration officials argued that it was more importantfor the Soviets to believe that we could intercept missiles in flight thanit was for the United States to actually have had the capability to do so.7Of course, if we were to take such thinking to its logicalextreme, the United States could today build a cheap "Potemkin" missiledefense system under the auspices of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas,never mind Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It is hard to see how we could do worse. We are spending $4 billiona year, year in and year out, for a ballistic missile defense effort thathas yet to deploy or successfully test a single reliable device. In fact,the most impressive products to come out of our $55 billion, 15year investmentin missile defenses to date are the flashy "artist's conceptions" of howfuture systems might work, which the military services and defense contractorsduly trot out whenever Congress threatens to cut back the Star Wars budgetby a few hundred million dollars. Dole, Gingrich,
Lott and Star Wars Revival The latest push for deployment of Star Wars has its roots in Speakerof the House Newt Gingrich's master plan, the Contract With America, whichwas modestly subtitled, "The Bold Plan by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. DickArmey, and the House of Representatives to Change the Nation." Under theheading"Strong National Defense," Gingrich and Armey's "bold plan" of 1994 calledfor "renewing America's commitment to an effective national missile defenseby requiring the Defense Department to deploy antiballistic missile systemscapable of defending the United States against ballistic missile attack."8 However, Gingrich and Armey's Star Wars plans suffered a surprisingsetback in the summer of 1996, when fiscal conservatives of both partiesjoined hands with liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives todefeat an amendment that would have mandated deployment of a missile defensesystem by as early as the year 2000. The decisive factor in stalling Gingrichand Armey's forced march to deployment was a Congressional Budget Officeanalysis that reminded members that even a modest ballistic missile defensesystem could cost tens of billions of dollars.9 Star Wars fared no better in the brief cameo appearance it made in BobDole's ill-fated 1996 presidential campaign. When Dole tried to whip upfear in California over the dangers of Chinese missiles raining down onLos Angeles, his rhetorical exertions were greeted with a collective yawnby Californians who were more concerned about the state's floundering economy. After falling flat in the House and on the presidential campaign trail,interest in ballistic missile defenses has now shifted to the Senate, whereMississippi senator Thad Cochran's Defend America Act has 50 cosponsors.An attempt to pass Cochran's billówhich mandates deployment of a limitedantiballistic missile system by the year 2003ófailed in May of this year,when Star Wars boosters could not muster the 60 votes needed to bring themeasure to the Senate floor. In a chilling display of party unity, however,all 55 Republican senators voted to bring the bill to the floor, whereit would have passed without difficulty.10The antiñStar Wars coalition is stronger in the House, so even if Cochranand Majority Leader Trent Lott succeed in ramming through a Senate billin support of their goal to see missile defenses deployed by 2003, theHouse should be able to block the bill in a House-Senate conference. Despite their recent political setbacks, Star Wars boosters are spoilingfor a fight over missile defense. In an excellent article by Carla AnneRobbins that ran in the Wall Street Journal on August 7 of this year, RepublicanNational Committee chairman Jim Nicholson identifies missile defenses as"the most important [security] issue of the 2000 election." In addition,Robbins reports, Jack Kemp's Empower America organization is trying towin over some members of the Senate to the cause by running proñStar Warsradio ads in targeted states like Nevada. Listeners are told: "We are onlyone vote shy of ensuring the safety of you and your family. But the peoplestanding in the way are Nevada's own senators." For a project so technically deficient to get this close to receivingthe go-ahead for deployment suggests that there is more going on here thanmeets the eye. Indeed, the Star Wars program is driven by deep psychological,political, and economic factors that have made it extremely difficult tostop simply on the merits of the program itself. Soothing
Our Fears: America Invulnerable? When Ronald Reagan decided to take the advice of the scientists, soldiers,and businessmen who were pushing the Star Wars planóled by H-bomb inventorEdward Teller and retired army general Daniel O. Graham, and amply financedby right-wing business leaders like Joseph Coorsóhis primary concern wasto make the American public feel safe from the horrors of a nuclear attack.12 The only truly effective courseógetting rid of nuclear weaponsódidnot appeal to Reagan and his inner circle at that point, at least not inthe manner put forward by the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) movementand the U.S.-based Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign. Instead, Reagan optedto seek a technical "solution" to our nuclear vulnerability by pursuinga multi-tiered antimissile system, which, if fully deployed, could havecost up to $1 trillion.13 George Keyworth,an Edward Teller protégé who served as Reagan's science advisor,told television journalist Bill Moyers in 1984 that Reagan was extremelyconcerned about the nuclear freeze initiative, and that he wanted to respondby doing something that would "give people some hope" that they would notbe incinerated in a nuclear holocaust. Reagan's March 1983 Star Wars speech,with its grand promises to render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete"and to change "the course of human history," was the first salvo in theReagan administration's campaign to put a positive spin on the nucleararms race.14 It may be possible to give the public false hope by offering it a technicalfix to the nuclear threat, à la Star Wars, though it would be safer,albeit more difficult, to address the problem directly by drastically reducingthe world's nuclear arsenals. As the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan,and Iran's test this past summer of a mid-range ballistic missile, beginto attract media attention to the nuclear threat for the first time sincethe end of the Cold War, the question will be whether the public will succumbto the reassuring (but false) promise of a technical fix to the problemof nuclear weapons. Defending
against Rogue States The Rumsfeld report was treated with undue respect by most of the nation'seditors and reporters. Few of the published accounts of the panel's findingsbothered to point out that several key players involved in this allegedlyobjective exercise are heavily invested in the Star Wars project, politicallyand economically. Rumsfeld himself was the chair of Bob Dole's failed 1996presidential bid, which tried to push Star Wars on a largely uninterestedpublic. More important, Rumsfeld works closely with the Center forSecurity Policy, a proñStar Wars think tank run by Frank Gaffney, a formerPentagon official in the Reagan administration, who has devoted his postgovernmentcareer to spreading the Star Wars creed. The center has received over $1million in donations from companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin(both major beneficiaries of Star Wars research funds). Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott, who also pushed for the Rumsfeld panel,are both firmly on record in favor of deploying a missile defense system as soon as possible.Lott has already managed to get one of the Star Wars laser programs movedto his state. Gingrich, a longtime Star Wars booster, has helped make surethat Congress annually appropriates roughly a billion research dollarsmore than the Pentagon asks foróto the direct benefit of Lockheed Martin,which maintains a major facility in Marietta, Georgia, just outside theSpeaker's district.16 One would have thought that self-respecting journalists would have consideredthe source before uncritically trumpeting the Rumsfeld panel's findings.The most embarrassing puff piece on the Rumsfeld report came in mid-July,when television talk show host Charlie Rose aired a shamelessly unbalancedpresentation featuring Rumsfeld and fellow Republican panelist Paul Wolfowitz,with no one on the other side of the debate present. Rose echoed the toneof controlled hysteria inherent in the Rumsfeld report by repeating Gingrich's"warning" remark several times during the broadcast. In essence, the segmentwas an infomercial for the Lott/Gingrich/Rumsfeld view of the looming threatfrom Third World missiles. If a Charlie Rose, with a research staff at his disposal, can fall forthe Star Wars myth, what chance does the general public have of sortingfact from fiction? On the heels of the Rumsfeld report, the RepublicanNational Committee (RNC) announced the results of a poll that asked peoplewhether or not they wanted to be defended from a Chinese missile attack.Not surprisingly, the RNC's loaded question yielded the intended response:75 percent of those polled said they wanted to be defended from ChineseICBMs. Of course, poll-driven foreign policy discussions have grave weaknesses,the most important being that they fail to provide citizens with the minimalfactual information they need to make informed decisions. The reason Chinawill not attack the United States with nuclear missiles is the same nowas it was two decades agoóbecause the minute it did so, China would beexposed to a totally devastating counterattack. The same would hold truefor North Korea, Iraq, or Iran, should they ever actually acquire the necessarytechnology to mount a weapon of mass destruction on a bomb that could reachU.S. soil. In fact, neither of the two main reasons that Rumsfeld offered in explainingU.S. vulnerability to an attack from Third World ballistic missilesótheavailability of technical assistance from other countries and the possibilityof a "sneak attack" from a country with a clandestine missile developmentprogramóhold up to scrutiny. How Should
America Respond? More recently, as we have now learned in connection with the ongoingWhite House fundraising scandals, the Clinton administration has made itmuch easier for companies like Loral and Hughes Electronics (both major contributors of soft money to the Democratic Party) to transfer satellitetechnology and services to China, some of which has helped Beijing improvethe accuracy of its ballistic missiles. Therefore, if Rumsfeld and othersbelieve that foreign technology transfers are driving the Third World missilethreat, their first priority should be to get the U.S. government to tightenup its own policy on exports of missile-related technologies. Only thencan we credibly press countries like China and Russia to curb their owndangerous exports of missile and nuclear weapons components.17 As for the "sneak attack" argument, it is even weaker upon examinationthan the foreign assistance argument. As Paul Wolfowitz put the case to Charlie Rose,a closed society like North Korea might possibly be able to hide an entireballistic missile development effort up to the moment of the first test,after which point that nation could be ready to launch a missile attackon the United States within six months. Wolfowitz's scenario is farfetched for many reasons. First and foremost,unless a foreign leader is on a suicide mission, there is no logic to usinga single ballistic missile (or even a handful of them) to attack the UnitedStates. If the leaders of Iraq or North Korea were to take such a foolishstep, all they would accomplish would be to announce to the world wherethe attack came fromóunlike concealing a bomb in a suitcase, it is notpossible to hide the origination point of a ballistic missile launch. Havingmade that announcement (and used up its stockpile of ballistic missilesin the process), the aggressor nation would then be completely unable todefend itself from a U.S. counterattack using nuclear or conventional bombs. Moreover, it is quite likely that any attempt by a Third World "roguestate" to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the United Stateswould be stopped long before a system could be deployed. After its firsttest, the nation in question would most likely face a preemptive strikeagainst its missile production facilities (unlike research sites, suchfacilities would be extremely difficult to hide). Thus, the "sneak attack"rational for Star Wars is wholly implausible. Furthermore, as Rumsfeldpanel member Richard Garwin noted in an op-ed piece in the New York Times,no defensive system currently under consideration could completely neutralizethe threat posed by even a small number of ballistic missiles. Garwin rightlyobserves that "the best way to defend against possible attack is to preventcountries like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq from getting these missilesin the first place."18 Missile development efforts in the Third World are much more worrisomefor their regional security implications than for their purported threatto the American homeland. The fact that Iran has recently tested a missilethat can reach Israel is a real security concern, as is the nascent racebetween India and Pakistan to test nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.But these regional threats could be more easily addressed with a robustresearch program on defenses against medium-range missiles that would costno more than $500 million to $1 billion per yearóa small fraction of thebloated $4 billion per year now going for Star Wars research. But, of course,a focus on the real threats would hardly be enough to keep the Boeingsand Lockheed Martins feeding at the Pentagon trough in the style to whichthey have become accustomed. If we want to avoid burdening our children and grandchildren with anunworkable, dangerous, and immensely costly project, the time to starteducating ourselves and our fellow citizens about the costs of the StarWars program is now. Even without a full grasp of the technical issuesinvolved, most people know a boondoggle when they see one. If the technicalfiascoes and special interest politics behind the Star Wars facade wereto become common knowledge, this program could be relegated to the dustbin of history where it belongs. In the meantime, anyone who wants to promote Ronald Reagan's legacyshould consider his more constructive contributions to nuclear weaponspolicy, such as pressing for the elimination of nuclear missiles from Europeor signing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)óthe first nucleararms control agreement in history to actually reduce the number of nuclearweapons in the stockpiles of the superpowers. As Jonathan Schell has pointedout in his recent book, The Gift of Time, with respect to nuclear weapons,Ronald Reagan was the "most fervently abolitionist president of the ColdWar period."19 So if we must pay homageto Ronald Reagan, let us honor Reagan the nuclear abolitionist, not Reaganthe Star Warrior.
1. John
Pike, Bruce Blair, and Stephen I. Schwartz, "Defendingagainst the
Bomb," in Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. NuclearWeapons
Since 1940, ed., Stephen I. Schwartz (Washington, D.C.: Brookings,
1998), p. 291.
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