Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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1. NMD: "ROBUST" DEFENSE PLAN IS STARTING TO SOUND FAMILIAR. A
ground-based interceptor missile failed to kill its target, there
were charges that contractors rigged tests, the GAO estimated the
cost of a completed system at a staggering $110B and Congress was
having second thoughts. The year was 1992 (WN 20 Mar 92). George
Bush was President, the missile was the ERIS, and the system was
GPALS (Global Protection Against Limited Strikes), successor to
SDI (WN 17 May 91). It's all happening again. The failed test
was of a puny ground-based defense against North Korea, which
seems a lot less angry these days and doesn't have an ICBM
anyway. A new test has been postponed to June, but why bother?
George W wants a more comprehensive defense that would be ground,
sea and space based. To fill out the picture, the backward-
looking cold warriors on a panel chaired by Donald Rumsfeld,
reminisced in a report released yesterday about space-power and
high-frontier stuff that was big in the Ford administration.
Rumsfeld reinforced his cold-war views at his Senate confirmation
hearing yesterday, saying that China was more of a foe than "a
strategic partner," that Taiwan was being threatened by a Chinese
military build-up, that "the North Korean dictatorship was more
interested in selling missiles than feeding its people" and that
the ABM treaty is "ancient history." With a world view like
that, no wonder he wants a Missile Defense. But that view isn't
widely shared. Out of 20 key issues, the public ranks NMD 18.
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