When former President Ronald Reagan refused to bargain away an untested missile defense system, he forced the Soviet Union to give up plans of nuclear hegemony and helped destroy the international Soviet threat. But now that the United States actually has produced remarkably successful missile-defense technology, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are signaling they might bargain some of it away in return for vague pledges of Russian help in blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions. If the new administration’s stance appears precisely backwards, that’s because it is.
Specifically, it was Friday the 13th of February that Hillary Clinton “signaled a willingness” to “slow plans for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe,” according to Reuters. Clinton further said that the United States has “technical” issues regarding the shield, echoing Obama’s campaign comments last year that he would sharply reduce funding for “unproven” missile defense technology. Reuters also reported that the White House plans a $2 billion (20 percent) cut in missile defense development funding. Obama and Clinton must not be paying attention. Two days before Clinton’s “signal,” the Heritage Foundation premiered a new documentary called “33 Minutes” that highlights both the dire need for missile defense and the impressive success of the system’s tests so far.
The title “33 Minutes” refers to the length of time it would take a ballistic missile from the farthest point on earth to reach the United States. The good news, according to the film, is that anti-missile systems not only can knock out incoming missiles, they can target the exact square inch on the missile to hit. The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance reports that since December, 2002, American land-, sea- and air-based missile defense tests have succeeded 34 of 35 times. The bad news, though, is that vast portions of the continental United States remain unprotected, as do most of our allies.
Heritage defense analyst Baker Spring told The Examiner this week that extensive “war games” trials have shown that missile defense is even more necessary in today’s more nuclear-proliferated world than it was during the Cold War between just two superpowers. He said the emerging Obama position is flat-out “dumb” because of “the unpredictability in a multi-polar world… that carries very profound security threats.” He’s right: To give up on a system with demonstrated success, and even greater promise of saving innocent lives, would be folly.
