Missile Defense System - Buren for the United States

This is well argued. Its weakest point is the lack of dealing with opposing

arguments.

Thesis: 15;

Summarize opposing arguments: 5

Main point: 15

Particulars: 15

Supporting evidence: 15

Conclusion: 10

MLA style: 4

Grammar, etc: 15

Total: 94/100

The National Missile Defense System - Burden for the United States

Anuar Orumbayev

English I

[ENG 121]

Instructor: Kenneth Ziegler

Arapahoe Community College

Feb.2.2004

The National Missile Defense System - Burden for the United States

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, both the United States and the

Soviet

Union have been searching for effective ways to defend themselves against

nuclear attack. In the early 1960’s, the Soviet Union’s superiority in long-

range ballistic missiles forced the United States to reevaluate its air-

defense system. This nuclear race was a major facet of the Cold War between

the United States and the Soviet Union, the war that has been a burden

rather than weapon competition for both the Soviets and America.

The Cold War was still fully active during the presidency of Ronald

Reagan. He proposed a National Missile Defense System. Originally,

President Reagan's plan called for development of a space based weapons

system that could detect and destroy ballistic missiles of any kind,

launched against the United States from any distance, without causing harm

to the people or the environment of the United States. Due to the current

political role of the United States in the world, and especially after the

attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush’s administration

has reasserted its intention of building this system.

These recent attacks have increased the US awareness of a growing

threat. Proponents state that given the growing ballistic missile industry

in other countries, the US has to prepare itself for attacks of any kind.

They claim that the building of a National Missile Defense will provide

more security to the people of the United States, and will in fact assure

the safety of every citizen of the United States within its territory.

Especially after the recent attacks, this is what the majority of the

people want at present. Even though these reasons seem to indicate that we

should implement the National Missile Defense System, there are many sound

arguments against it.

Currently, chances of the United States being attacked by ballistic

missiles of long range are very low, or do not exist at all. Even though

the United States government suspects that countries like North Korea,

Iran, or for that matter any Muslim state may launch such an attack, these

countries are not in possession of weapons of mass destruction with

capabilities of harming the United States. An article published by Robert

Joseph and Keith Payne of the Institute of National Strategic Studies

asserts that “No proliferant state currently has the ability to strike the

United States with ballistic missiles. If threats do emerge, US

conventional superiority or, if necessary, offensive nuclear forces will

deter attacks on the United States” (Joseph and Payne 1).

Even though the US government is insisting on building this missile

defense system, the Pentagon hasn’t thoroughly tested the system. Seven

tests of hitting an airborne target were conducted. The Pentagon states

that all seven were successful, and that the US government is ready to

start this project. A group of scientists from Institute of technology

explained how the tests were conducted, and how they were in fact

unsuccessful. They clearly state that in the first two tests, the system

failed to distinguish between the target warhead and a set of decoys that

were shaped like warheads. Modern nuclear missiles all launch multiple

decoys along with one or more warheads. After this failure in the first

two tests, the multiple realistically-shaped decoys were replaced by a

single large balloon-shaped decoy in all of the later tests. In order to

make the tests appear successful, the unidentifiable decoys were removed

from the test field.

Another controversial issue about the National Missile Defense system

is the cost to the American public. This will be the single most expensive

project in the history of the United States, estimated to be between sixty

billion and one hundred billion dollars. Assuming that some parts of

nuclear warheads periodically need to be replaced due to radioactive decay,

the price might go up to half a trillion dollars, depending on the exact

system that the US government develops. This amount will mean more taxes

from every citizen, and increase of national debt. Instead of spending this

amount of money building the National Missile Defense system, the US

government would be better served paying off the national debt to its

citizens.

The recent attacks of September 11 weren’t nuclear; they were realized

by using civilian airplanes as a weapon. These attacks claimed more than

three thousands lives. Considering the unavailability of nuclear weapons at

present, these kinds of attacks are more likely to occur than nuclear

attacks. So instead of focusing on nuclear attacks, the US government

should spend the money on security at airports, malls, or other public

places.

The only state that has the power to launch weapons of mass

destruction against the United States is Russia. Although the Russia of

today is not the same as the Soviet Union of 1984, it is still very

powerful in the field of nuclear weapons. Some think that if US starts

developing the Missile Defense System it might encourage Russia to upgrade

its nuclear arsenal, but it won't happen for one reason: its too expensive

for Russia's current budget. Cold War brought Soviets bankruptcy and

collapse, and neither Russia nor any former Soviet state would like to

repeat this experiment again.

Right now the building of a National Missile Defense system should not

be among priorities for the government. The building of such a system

however would not make the United States more secure, because instead of

launching ballistic missiles terrorists target places of high civilian

concentration, besides this Missile Defense project is too expensive for

America and it will bring nothing else rather than huge national debt.