ISSUE:

Sometime in July, President Clinton will likely decide whether to begin deployment of a national anti-missile defense system to protect the nation against a small number of missiles that might be launched by rogue states, particularly North Korea. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the system will cost $49 billion through 2015. These funds would be committed despite:

• Minimal testing of the technology,
  
• The likelihood that making such a system operational wold undermine existing nuclear reduction and non-proliferation treaties, while leaving unaddressed greater national security threats and perhaps actually increasing national insecurity.

ACTION:

Write the President and urge that he not move forward with deployment of even a limited national missile defense (NMD) system.

Address:

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Among the reasons that can be noted to support this message are the following:

1. Initiating a NMD system may actually increase dangers to the United States. Russia will likely regard even a limited installation as a first step toward a future system that would threaten their security and respond by withdrawing from present treaties on strategic weapons. A renewed nuclear arms race could result as both Russia and China increase their number of missiles and warheads as the best and cheapest way to ensure that a U.S. offensive capability is not maintained unassailable behind an anti-missile system.

2. While purportedly aimed at rogue states, the proposed NMD system would do nothing to defend against a far greater threat of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices, launched from small ships near our large cities, or smuggled into the country and delivered by vials and suitcases.

3. The technology for even a limited NMD system is unproven and much in doubt. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the system under consideration would cost $49 billion over the next several years. At a time when needed investments in human development in this country and abroad are being denied or delayed on budget grounds, it would be unconscionable to commit such funds for deployment of a system that has no proven, real-world capability.

General Assembly Guidance:

The 1986 Assembly called on the governments of the U.S. and Soviet Union "to cease research, development and testing plans for space-based ballistic missile defense systems, and to enter into bilateral and multilateral negotiations in order to ban the testing and deployment of weapons in space, and to develop cooperatively peaceful uses of outer space."

For more information on this issue, visit the following web sites:

Council for a Livable World
(Major section on Ballistic Missile Defense)

Union of Concerned Scientists

Friends Committee on National Legislation
(Good list of links to research this subject matter)

Federation of American Scientists

Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers
(See especially, Pushing the Limits, a 55-page, April 2000 report, and the Health and Environmental Effects list.)

Physicians for Social Responsibility