NMD - National Missile Disaster
by David Demere
As the Bush administration and its corporate allies move to consolidate
support for deployment of Star Wars, peace movement activity around the
world is mounting. In April, 1,000 people gathered in London to say NO to
Star Wars. In March, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in
Space (GN) held a National Space Organizing Conference & Protest in
Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Redstone Arsenal, which does 70% of the
military research and development work on missile defense, and the Marshall
Space Flight Center, which is developing the nuclear rocket. There were also
protests at Cape Canaveral, Fl, in Leeds, England, and in Colorado Springs,
home of the U.S. Space Command. A civil resistance action took place at
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the missile tests are
launched.
Right-wing Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been a leader in the campaign to brand China an aggressor nation that must be restrained by U.S. power in order to preserve world peace...China's present military budget if 5% of the U.S. military budget and about 1/3 of Japan's military spending.
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The testing program at Vandenberg AFB is not going well. At $100 million per
test, there have been three failures in a row, with 16 more to go. The
land-based system to protect the continental U.S. is in trouble. The Bush
administration has indicated its preference for a more extensive, layered
system than the single-site design now being pursued. The 2005 deployment
date for National Missile Defense (NMD) is only a dream. Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld is now talking about restructuring the NMD and doubling its
budget. The next NMD test from Vandenberg will take place this summer on a
Minuteman booster. Greenpeace has announced that it intends to disrupt the
test with its ship, the Rainbow Warrior, by entering the test range near
Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands.
At a recent NATO meeting, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) told the
Europeans, "The question, from an American point of view, is not whether we
will have a national missile defense, but when and how." Having pushed the
inevitability of "missile defense" so hard, but also knowing that the
Pentagon is nowhere near ready for deployment, something must be deployed
before worldwide opposition slams the door closed to Star Wars. A senior
military official recently said that one idea afloat is to start with the
more flexible boost-phase missile defense system, also called Theatre
Missile Defense (TMD) on Aegis destroyers, and then move missile defenses to
space, thereby "getting away from a land-based umbrella defense concept."
Using existing Japan-based Aegis ships, the Navy says the system could be
deployed in 12-18 months and would cost $200 million. The system's
capability would be limited and would be directed at North Korea and China.
Other, more sophisticated systems, based on Aegis destroyers, could be ready
in four to five years, also allowing the U.S. to attack missiles right after
they are launched.
The U.S. is pushing its European allies hard to support Star Wars. Despite
early reluctance over missile defense all across Europe, the U.S. formulated
a new strategy to bring the allies on board the space war train. The first
step was to get NATO to agree to a two-year "feasibility study" to look into
missile defense. Then, Rumsfeld announced that he was dropping the word
"national" from national missile defense, meaning that the U.S. wanted to
protect its allies as well as the continental U.S. Finally, and probably
most importantly, the U.S. is now signaling that it is willing to share the
lucrative contracts with European aerospace corporations to build a Theater
Missile Defense system that could be deployed worldwide, offering Europe
protection from "rogue" nuclear attacks. Lockheed Martin is now forming a
"consortium" to explore sharing the $8 billion contract to build the NATO
TMD system.
For years, the U.S. has used Japan as a "power projection platform" in the
Asian-Pacific region. Now, the two countries are working to develop upgrades
to the ship-based TMD system. Because the system would be carried on ships
it could travel close to North Korea and China. There are now 50 such Aegis
destroyers and 25 more scheduled to be built. The first deployment of 80
missiles on four of the ships is planned to cost $5.4 billion and slated for
a 2010 operation.
The Israeli Air Force is now considering purchasing a military
communications satellite to go along with TMD systems it is jointly
developing with the U.S. Funding for the satellite would likely come from
supplemental U.S. military aid packages. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are
currently in negotiations with Israel to build the military satellite. Arab
countries see the Israeli development of TMD and military satellites as
offensive moves, and have become interested in acquiring nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles of their own. Thus a new regional arms race has been
created.
Russia has said that if the U.S. deploys "missile defense," thus violating
the 1972 ABM Treaty that outlaws such systems, it will be forced to suspend
all arms reduction negotiations. Former Space Command director Gen. Charles
Horner was quoted years ago as saying the U.S. needs to drastically reduce
its current nuclear arsenal and transfer much of the money into space
weapons technologies. Bush's call for "new weapons for the 21st Century"
confirms that his nuclear weapons "disarmament" strategy is nothing more
than a high-tech shell game.
Increasingly, the major war games played by the Pentagon take place in Asia.
Current military/diplomatic efforts are aimed at maintaining U.S. forces in
South Korea and Japan. The U.S. is rebuilding a military relationship with
the Philippines, and is broadening military ties with Australia. Right-wing
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has been a leader in the campaign to brand China as an
aggressor nation that must be restrained by U.S. power in order to preserve
world peace. Kyl has stated, "China has long-range nuclear-tipped missiles
targeted at American cities, and is already increasing its arsenal of such
weapons. It remains to be seen whether the rhetoric from Beijing will become
reality, but in light of China's troubling actions, prudence demands that we
take steps to address China's behavior." China's present military budget is
5% of the U.S. military budget and 1/3 of Japan's military spending. China
is concerned for the following reasons: Japan's involvement in TMD with the
U.S.; the perception that anti-Chinese voices are influencing U.S. policy,
as demonstrated by the Los Alamos espionage case; U.S. arms sales to Taiwan;
and recent revelations of U.S. spy flights off China's coast.
Source: Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 90083, Gainesville, FL. 32607,
(352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org e-mail:
globalnet@mindspring.com
Individual Responsibility to Keep Weapons out of Space:Join Peace Action Maine's Disarmament Committee which meets at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of
each month on the 2nd floor of the Peace and Justice Center One Pleasant
Street, Portland. You will find information to help you write letters to the
editor and to your Congressional representatives. Participate in planning
strategies for meeting the challenges presented by these new weapons
systems. Our library has the new GN video, "Keep Space for Peace" and the
Karl Grossman video entitled "Star Wars Returns." We also have Grossman's
latest book,"Weapons in Space."
Back to Peace Talk Index, Summer, 2001