Investor's Business Daily December 5, 2001
Another Success
Investor's Daily Editorial
Missile Defense: They said it couldn't be done. Then the U.S. missile defense program recorded its third success. Still, they say, it can't be done. With each success, the naysayers' voices grow quieter. Still, we hold no illusions they'll ever shut up entirely. Not even the deployment of a fully operational missile shield would silence the more hard-line critics. They'll shift gears, and move from claiming it will never work to dubiously arguing it will destabilize arms control.
Much of the opposition to missile defense is based on poor, and often nonexistent, logic. To wit: It wouldn't have stopped the Sept. 11 suicide terrorists, so we shouldn't have one. It will take too long to develop a system; we shouldn't waste money trying. (Should we apply the same reasoning to our search for a cancer cure?) We can't deploy a missile shield because it violates the ABM treaty with the Soviet Union. (Need we point out that the Soviet Union is gone? Some will argue Russia has pledged it will comply with Soviet treaties. That's admirable. But it hardly means the U.S. is bound to a treaty it signed with a nation that no longer exists.)
Our favorite is probably the it-will-never-work-so-we-should-drop-the-program reasoning, a velvety bromide most often offered by the fuzzy-headed. John Pike, then director of space policy at the Federation of American Scientists and a well-known critic, flatly stated "It won't work" in USA Today nearly three years ago. Did Monday's test change his mind? Not likely. Pike once said he would believe only if he were invited to a picnic on the Mall in Washington with the president, and a missile shield shot down a nuclear warhead that was aimed at their party. Though the Navy's sea-based Aegis defense offers great promise in being able to shoot down incoming missiles, missile defense opponents don't seem to be willing to accept the evidence. Even the evidence of another successful test.
Copyright 2001 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
