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Arms Control and the Strategic Defense Initiative
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11049 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1986 |
5,604 Words |
| Author
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Sidney D. Drell and Theodore A. Postol
Sidney D. Drell is Codirector of the Center of International
Security and Arms Control at Stanford University and is Deputy
Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Theodore A.
Postol is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for
International Security and Arms Control at Stanford
University. |
President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly referred to as Star Wars, has raised fundamental issues that go to the heat of the strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. These issues are also fundamental to the future of the present military stability, which so far has spared us the consequences of a nuclear war. This applies to both the original Star Wars proposal of the president, advocated to escape from or transcend deterrence by achieving a totally effective defense against strategic nuclear weapons, and the more modest goal of enhancing deterrence through an effective, but partial, nationwide defense, which is the stated objective of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program as submitted to the Congress. For example, in the program statement presented by the Department of Defense in April 1985 it is argued that:
"In pursuing strategic defenses, the U.S. goal has never been to eventually give up the policy of deterrence. With defenses, the U.S. seeks not to replace deterrence, but to enhance it."
Whatever the objectives of the program, whether it be the elimination or the enhancement of deterrence, it is quite clear that neither of these possibilities will occur without a number of as yet revolutionary or unforeseen developments in both science and technology.
It is difficult for any responsible scientist to assert flatly that the achievement of a task by technical means is impossible without being accused of being a "naysayer." Indeed, many instances can be cited in which prominent scientists have concluded that a task was impossible, only to be proved wrong by future discoveries. However, it is also important to understand that the deployment of an effective nationwide defense is not a single technical achievement. Instead, it is the evolution of an extensive and exceedingly complex system of originally interdependent elements. Each element will depend critically on the performance of the others, and damage, destruction, or even slightly degraded performance of some elements might result in a catastrophic failure that could well be far more dramatic and costly than the recently witnessed tragic loss of the Challenger spacecraft.
All the complex system functions must perform at near perfection if the defense is to achieve its purpose, protection against ballistic missiles. There must be highly reliable and nondisruptibel sensors to provide early warning of an attack. There must be communications with similar characteristics to transmit sensor data to decision makers.
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