National Missile Defense Essay -- Weapons War Cold War American Histor

National Missile Defense Historical Perspective On March 23, 1983, through a nationally televised address to the nation, then President Ronald Reagan envisioned a †Star Wars† defense system to replace the existing element of mutual deterrence between the two Cold War superpowers. The system calls for a high-tech impenetrable ballistic missile shield for the United States. The speech marks the birth of the Strategic Defense Initiative1 (SDI). It came about when the Soviets then had numerical advantage over the United States in ballistic missiles that are increasingly accurate and powerful. In fact, the Soviets has the ability to overwhelm the United States' missiles on the ground should a conflict ever occur. Arms race is a vicious cycle in itself and will not contribute to the cause of world peace. Therefore, to render this advantage impotent and obsolete, President Reagan directs the nation’s talented and government agencies to begin exploring and researching programs that will achieve the ultimate goal of elim inating threats due to weapons of mass destruction now and for the years to come. In less than a decade after setting the vision, the United States was grossly reminded of the necessity of employing a capable missile defense system during the Gulf War. On February 25, 1991, in a missile attack on Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, an Iraqi-launched Scud missile’s warhead hit a warehouse that served as a United States barrack, killing 28 soldiers and injuring scores of others in the process. Apparently, one Patriot battery was not operational while the other was not able to track the incoming missile due to a software problem. Immediate Perspective The number of nations possessing ballistic missiles has increased ov... ...ense What Does It All Mean?" Missile Defense Issue Brief. Center of Defense Information. 17 May 2002. <http://www.cdi.org/Hotspots/nmdissuebrief/nmd32.pdf> 10. Antonia Handler Chayes and Paul Doty. Defending Deterrence. Virgina: Pergamon- Brassey's International Defense Publishers, Inc., 1989. 11. "Commentary: The Moral Necessity of Missile Defense." Reason, Individualism, Achievement and, Freedom. Mar. 2001. The Objectivist Center. 17 May 2002. <http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/jrobbins_moral-necessity-missile- defense.asp> 12. Lieutenant Ron G. Jacobson "Morality of Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense." Military Philosophy and Ethnics. Feb. 1999 National Security Affairs. 18 May 2002. <http://nsa.nps.navy.mil/Publications/Micewski/Jacobson.html>