2. US Missile Defense Plans
Six experts convened by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, equally divided between proponents and opponents of missile defense, agreed that US President Clinton's plan for a limited missile defense would not work. Mary McGrory noted, "No one either at the US Defense Department or Carnegie mentioned that the system also may be unnecessary."
"More Missile Madness"
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), led by Ted Postol, a missile expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, criticizes the feasibility of national missile defense (NMD). They contend that it is impossible to acquire enough data to differentiate a real warhead from a decoy, such as an aluminium-coated mylar balloon. Jacques Gansler, the US Department of Defense's acquisition chief, testified to the House Armed Services Committee last week that NMD critics simply lack the information to judge the system as technically unfeasible. An unclassified summary of a DOD report by the National Missile Defense Independent Review Team concluded the NMD could defend against missiles with simple countermeasures. The DOD said it is classified how the system could do this.
"US DoD assails NMD critics"
Members of the Henry L. Stimson Working Group on Theater Missile Defenses (TMD) all agreed that policy options for Theater Missile Defense should not be driven by ideological constructs, and neither should they be driven by technological optimism. The Working Group's deliberations have considered that US policy choices toward TMD must be aware of the problems associated with missile defense deployments, but they must also be responsive to the growing ballistic missile threats in the Asia-Pacific region. The Working Group recommends the deployment of TMD systems with US forward-deployed forces.
"Theater Missile Defenses in the Asia-Pacific Region"
Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr. writes in Arms Control Today that US Presidential candidate George W. Bush's proposed missile defense system would be perceived as negating even a substantially expanded Chinese deterrent and providing at least the base for a defense that would challenge Russia's ability to maintain a survivable deterrent. Keeny writes, "Bush's perspective on the US nuclear arsenal is conducive to domestic bipartisan support for the overall reduction of nuclear forces, but there would appear to be little prospect that such an unregulated and unverified process of unilateral reductions would get very far, particularly in the shadow of a major US NMD program that would inhibit Russian reciprocation."
"A World Without Arms Control"