COMMENTS: Star Wars-A Dangerous Chimera
Adams, Gordon
The Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars" is dominating the national security debate. Star Wars is seen by some as "the most radical change in strategic policy since World War II"...
...Few members can resist the pressures of jobs, funds in their districts, and campaign contributions...
...Star Wars and Offensive Weapons IF STAR WARS IS REALLY MEANT to protect missiles, can it do this job effectively or will it spur an arms race...
...Its only promise is as a technology to trade away for reductions in Soviet nuclear forces...
...The Federation of American Scientists estimates that Star Wars R&D will cost $60 billion in constant 1986 dollars, making it more expensive than the Manhattan Project ($15 billion...
...One of the leading defense industry trade groups—the American Defense Preparedness Association—has already formed a subsection of contractors interested in promoting Star Wars (Defense Week, April 15, 1985...
...but not testing or deployment...
...Star Wars and the Iron Triangle IS SUCH A BUDGETARY IMPASSE LIKELY...
...Star Wars is seen by some as "the most radical change in strategic policy since World War II" (Business Week, June 20, 1983), combining radically new technologies in a way that will render "nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete" (President Reagan, March 23, 1983...
...This proposed rapid-growth funding shows that the Administration's goal is to institutionalize Star Wars as quickly as possible, tying the hands of the next Administration...
...The conference, of course, was for contractors interested in the program...
...We're not so much overjoyed as overcome...
...Daniel 0. Graham, director of the private High Frontier group, agrees that the best space-based system would still allow many warheads to continue toward their targets...
...Star Wars was described in an October 1984 conference brochure of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as a "state-of-the-art cornucopia...
...What will Star Wars do for the military contracting community...
...military policy is sending a highly mixed signal...
...The New York Times recently quoted an executive of a "management consulting firm specializing in pay" (Robert J. Freedman), as follows: "It certainly was a good year for executives...
...Thanks to Star Wars, both sides are now pursuing missile defense and, at the same time, the offensive capabilities that could overcome this defense...
...Without it, Star Wars could proceed, truly unrestrained...
...In addition, ground-based missiles will fire at surviving warheads before they hit targets in the U.S...
...It is, instead, an integral part of a nuclear strategy, increasingly oriented toward the offensive use of nuclear weapons as a strategy that includes imagining that a nuclear war can be fought, controlled, won, and survived...
...Additional low-flying cruise missiles and bombers, smaller targets that can evade detection...
...Malcom Wallop (R–Wy...
...The pieces of this triangle are already emerging...
...Can Congress be far behind...
...This treaty, which prohibits testing and deployment of ballistic missile defenses, is due for renewal at the end of 1985...
...Other major contractors are already involved with the Star Wars horn of plenty: Boeing, LTV, Aerojet General, General Electric, Honeywell, Grumman, Litton (ITEK), RCA, and Westinghouse...
...Chaff and other atmospheric junk to fool the Star Wars radar...
...By the end of the decade, both sides would have far less arms control and many more arms...
...265...
...Moreover, a first strike with Star Wars would be devastating to the other side...
...The list of interested private-sector parties is overwhelming...
...Can a construction of such vast complexity stand even a remote chance of working...
...and the president is no longer avoiding the Russians, thanks to Star Wars we are in negotiations in Geneva...
...Star Wars ideas began in the de263 fense labs—Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Charles Stark Draper...
...Team leaders include, as might be expected, GenThem's Pickins...
...Where to Go...
...On the drawing boards for the 1990s: the Midgetman missile, the Stealth bomber, and an advanced, supersonic, air-launched cruise missile...
...See Union of Concerned Scientists, The Fallacy of Star Wars (New York: Vintage, March 1984...
...Office of Technology Assessment, Directed Energy Missile Defense in Space (April 1984...
...Clearly, the "Astrodome" over the United States is not currently possible...
...Already military spending, Social Security, and interest on the debt consume nearly three-quarters of federal spending...
...Department of Defense, Ballistic Missile Defense and U.S...
...Star Wars and Arms Control STAR WARS HAS CLEAR CONSEQUENCES for arms control...
...It will rise from 3.7 percent of Pentagon R&D in fiscal 1984 to over 13 percent in fiscal 1990, if current estimates are passed...
...Star Wars and Real Defense THERE IS AN INCREASINGLY WIDE RANGE Of literature on Star Wars.* The results, however, are inconclusive...
...It is also attacked as a system that will set "in motion a chain of events and reactions that would leave both superpowers much less secure and could even lead to nuclear war" (Union of Concerned Scientists, March 1984, p. 175...
...Proxy statements circulated for shareholder meetings show that quite a few buckos raked in a million dollars or more last year...
...Richard Garwin, Dr...
...Instead, the Star Wars solution accelerates the arms race...
...The Soviet Union will respond, since Star Wars threatens the heart of their nuclear force —three-quarters of Soviet warheads are landbased missiles...
...The Soviets, of course, are pursuing their own new offensive systems...
...For those who argue that only a crash program will guarantee a serious Soviet attitude toward negotiations, it should be noted that 264 while a crash program guarantees talks (who wouldn't want to stop the program and the expense of reacting...
...The groundbased elements of "Star Wars" are now being planned to protect missile sites, not population centers...
...The U.S...
...THE ARMS RACE WILL NOT HALT because of a technological end run...
...q eral Research Corp., Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell International, Science Applications, Sparta Corp., Teledyne, and TRW...
...They are now joined by many others, Democrats and Republicans alike...
...Star Wars has stolen center stage from the nuclear freeze proposal...
...The program now has a committed Pentagon bureaucracy and a Pentagon spokesperson...
...Star Wars and the Budget THE CONSEQUENCES OF STAR WARS for military spending are staggering...
...Meanwhile both the U.S...
...Without an unratified SALT II treaty and no other new treaty on offensive weapons, the offensive counters to Star Wars will also proceed unrestrained...
...The standard rule of thumb in military contracting is to double such estimates, making it $52 billion...
...Kosta Tsipis, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Union of Concerned Scientists disagree equally strongly...
...George Brown (D–Calif...
...John Pike, The Strategic Defense Initiative Budget and Program (Washington, D.C.: Federation of American Scientists, March 1985...
...It may disappear by then, under the pressure of technologies, charges and countercharges about treaty violations...
...These are the biggies...
...The technologies are an understandably exciting challenge to the scientific community and hold out the promise of long-term employment...
...Star Wars is neither a purely defensive technology nor an alternative to the arms race...
...The nuclear arms race must be tackled frontally if it is going to be ended...
...A vast increase in the number of nuclear warheads to overwhelm Star Wars...
...In October 1984, ten firms received contracts worth a total of $6 million to define Star Wars technology, systems, and above all the strategy for their use...
...As funding grows, a Star Wars constituency in Congress is sure to develop and the triangle will begin to close around the program...
...Of course, U.S...
...This reality has meaningful consequences for offensive weapons developments and arms control...
...Yet such experts as Dr...
...White House, Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces (April 1984...
...The crash nature of Star Wars funding, moreover, ensures that contractors will profit...
...were the original promoters of Star Wars in Congress...
...Even Lt...
...The Administration proposes to increase Star Wars from $1.4 billion in 1985 to $3.7 billion in 1986, a figure Congress will surely cut...
...A successful U.S...
...Warheads that penetrate the space defense will be picked up by land-based defense systems...
...Star Wars will first eat up the Pentagon's R&D budget...
...Negotiated restrictions on such technologies and on offensive weapons are still a central part of our security...
...The most effective way for Congress to influence our negotiating posture in Geneva is to slow down the crash program for Star Wars...
...The scientific community clearly disagrees in minute detail about the system, one that none of them has built...
...BMD is, in fact, an integral part of "counterforce" or "warfighting" strategic theory...
...Dummy warheads and decoys, making it harder for Star Wars to detect the real from the false...
...Since Star Wars is part of the nuclear arms race and not a substitute for it, the system opens the way to a new, more dangerous and destabilizing stage of the arms race...
...Some do: Rep...
...Funding for Star Wars needs to be slowed, permitting the exploration allowed by current treaties...
...It is not hard to imagine the offensive counters to Star Wars we or the Soviets might develop: • Depressed (lower) trajectory missiles that are not in space long enough to be targeted by a laser...
...lead the opposition to Star Wars...
...If this be arms control, we may grow old in Geneva and be far less secure at the end of the negotiations...
...National Security: Summary Report, Future Security Strategy Study (October 1983...
...The U.S...
...What will be the impact of Star Wars on offensive weapons...
...This is not a recipe for stable deterrence or increased national security for either side...
...it also guarantees an accelerated offensive and defensive arms race between the superpowers...
...By the end of the decade, Star Wars will be putting real pressure on the Pentagon's budget...
...John R. Opel of IBM snagged a total of $3,841,334...
...The Administration estimates that the Star Wars research and development (R&D) program will cost $26 billion...
...Them's pickins...
...E.G...
...It is portrayed as an alternative to the offensive nuclear arms race, one the Soviets should adopt...
...first strike with a Star Wars defense would mean those missiles would be helpless...
...So much money thrown this fast is certain to attract supporters in the Pentagon, in the technical and contracting communities, and, ultimately, in Congress—creating an "iron triangle" in support of the program...
...and the U.S.S.R...
...It is not enough to say something cannot be done—some Boy Scout will surely appear who will try to do it...
...T. Boone Pickens passed up on stock options, and made his $4,223,077 straight...
...None of these land systems are, however, intended to defend cities...
...Robert Jastrow, "The War Against 'Star Wars,' " Commentary (December 1984...
...We really bleed for John S. Reed of Citicorp who didn't make it to a million—a mere $834,867...
...Sensible discussion in Geneva about reductions in nuclear arsenals could then follow...
...At the same time that we portray Star Wars as an alternative, the U.S...
...We will achieve greater security only from a careful and realistic approach to the existing problem, not from an escapist fantasy...
...Typical of such an iron triangle, contractors are actually being asked to define Star Wars, since the Pentagon itself lacks the information and expertise to define the system...
...Ballistic missile defense, in other words, is highly compatible both with the possibility of successfully striking first in a nuclear exchange and with a strategy of being prepared to fight a "protracted" or "limited" nuclear war...
...A system designed to protect missiles, not people, Star Wars is the direct descendant of the antiballistic missile and one of the biggest single components in programs for ballistic missile defense (BMD...
...The program is a guaranteed recipe for waste: a great deal of money, thrown very fast, at an unknown technology...
...As we reach a production decision on Star Wars in the 1990s, it will begin to eat up the rest of the federal budget as well...
...David S. Lewis of General Dynamics, $3,101,493...
...As prototypes of Star Wars systems are tested, both countries begin to violate the only arms-control treaty in this area—the 1970 ABM agreement...
...and Nicholas Mavroules (D–Mass...
...Profit-making contractors have become more interested as the funds have grown...
...Ronald Dellums (D– Calif...
...Ground-based lasers shining into the space-based mirrors of the Star Wars system...
...Accelerated launch land-based missiles that would move faster and avoid detection...
...1987 plans call for $4.9 billion, with $6.2 billion in 1988, $7.3 billion in 1989, and $8.7 billion in 1990...
...As each side in the nuclear standoff has developed more accurate offensive missiles, the other side's missiles have become more vulnerable...
...stand to lose what arms control they have...
...This is a dead-end strategy...
...From that perspective, I would have to assume that executives are overjoyed...
...In one bold stroke the Administration has removed—at least for now— the two principal pillars of the American peace movement critique: the president is no longer pushing offense but defense...
...Missiles that spin as they rise, dissipating the effect of a laser beam...
...Nuclear space mines, killer satellites, and other space weapons designed to blind or destroy Star Wars satellites...
...Star Wars might work—as a ballistic missile defense and as an integral part of counterforce 262 strategy...
...Star Wars and offensive weapons need to be negotiable—a freeze on testing and deployment and the reduction of existing arsenals should be at the heart of our negotiating posture in Geneva...
...If this is not done now, Star Wars may well be politically entrenched by 1990—a new Administration will find it hard to stop...
...For example: Harry J. Gray, chairman of United Technologies, received $1,557,620 in salary and bonuses, and sweetened it by exercising stock options to the tune of $2,676,059, for a total of $4,241,179...
...This brief description vastly oversimplifies the complexity of the power sources, tracking equipment, optics, communications, and computerization involved in the Star Wars system...
...Physicist Robert Jastrow is fond of citing "the defense professionals who earn their living thinking about these matters" (as in his Commentary article of December 1984) in asserting that Star Wars can work...
...Soviet strategic planners are already responding in two ways: by building their own Star Wars system to prevent a successful U.S...
...Washington Post, October 22, 1984...
...What will Star Wars do to the military budget...
...is pursuing the MX, Trident II, Pershing II, ground- sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, and the B-1 bomber...
...and Rep...
...It is inevitable that each party will research ways to make those missiles less vulnerable...
...George Keyworth, the president's science adviser and his colleagues at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore Labs agree strongly on this assessment...
...This is, however, exactly what the Administration is not doing...
...Hans Bethe, Dr...
...The logical consequence is that it would only work for a while, until the other side develops countering technologies...
...James A. Abrahamson...
...Other defense technologies will be shoved aside, unless the defense budget overall is allowed to grow at unusually high rates—an increasingly unlikely outcome...
...Cost estimates for full deployment of operating Star Wars satellites, mirrors, and ground systems have ranged from $500 billion to $1 trillion...
...position in Geneva has been to argue that Star Wars is not negotiable...
...the country that could protect some of its missiles from a response to that strike would hold the "upper hand" after the first exchange...
...In the Pentagon, disparate ballistic-missile defense efforts in the Air Force, Navy, Army, and Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) have been centralized inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), led by Lt...
...first strike (or to enhance their own first-strike capability) and by accelerating the development of weapons systems that can penetrate Star Wars...
...Star Wars actually consists of many technologies: space satellites bearing high-energy lasers...
...After them, you get guys who merely hauled in something over $2 million, or hardly more than a million-plus...
...261 The idea that Star Wars should not be built because it cannot succeed, however, is unacceptable to most scientists and most Americans, the native country of "can do...
...With Star Wars, there will be virtually no room at all in the budget for new, creative domestic programs...
...We must deal with the myth and the reality of Star Wars if we are to have a reasonable, realistic national security policy as an alternative to that of the past five years: • Is Star Wars a fool-proof defense against ballistic missiles, rendering deterrence and nuclear war obsolete...
...As complex as a freeze and reductions can be, they are not more complex than pursuing the chimera of security through replacing offensive weapons (still being built) with an elusive, fool-proof defense sometime in the future...
...Putting more nuclear missiles at sea, where they are harder to target because their location is unknown...
...or particle beams aimed, through mirrors, at oncoming Soviet missiles in their boost phase or at the warhead-bearing "bus" of those missiles in midcourse, either moving 18,000 miles an hour...
...What will be the impact of Star Wars on arms control...
...now has more than ten "red teams" working on technologies to penetrate Soviet ballistic missile defenses (see, for example, Aviation Week, September 3, 1984...
...The United States has been pursuing ballistic missile defense for more than 20 years...
...Ken Kramer (R–Colo...
...The real issue with Star Wars is "what can be done" and "should it be done...
Vol. 32 • July 1985 • No. 3
