>The Globe and Mail Monday, January 15, 2001
>
>The final frontier
>
> There's more than meets the eye to the
> controversial U.S. scheme, says scientist
> John Valleau. Much, much more
>
> By John Valleau
>
> Incoming U.S. president George W. Bush and his nominee as secretary
> of state, Colin Powell, are strong supporters of the National Missile
> Defence project -- basically a scaled-down version of the "Star Wars"
> scheme that was proposed, and discredited, in the Reagan years. The
> purpose of the project is claimed to be the ability to intercept, in
> space, a small number of missiles launched against the United States. But
> the controversial plan may be more sinister than we could imagine, and
> Canada must make every effort to stop it.
> The missile defence proposal poses a giant conundrum, because the
> costs, financial and strategic, appear much greater than any benefits to
> the United States.
> If, as its proponents say, the system would be capable only of
> intercepting a few attacking missiles, the scheme offers no defence from
> an assault by any serious antagonist. The costs, on the other hand, are
> massive, not only in consuming billions of dollars by itself, but in
> fuelling a new arms race. Russia and China both interpret the U.S. plan
> as part of the development of a nuclear "first-strike" capability. They,
> therefore, make it clear that, if it goes ahead, they will feel obliged
> to modernize their arsenals. This would mean an end to nuclear disarmament.
> So why would the United States contemplate accepting these risks for
> such meagre and dubious benefits? What can be driving the the missile
> defence project?
> The answer may lie in a little-known plan for the United State to
> dominate and colonize outer space.
The answer may lie instead (or in addition) in the often-forgotten military
version of Keynesianism, in which gigantic boondoggles that are extremely
popular with the military industrialists who are always in need of profits,
don't compete with other industries by producing products that people need
or want, are usually inoffensive to the Pentagon (especially if they don't
involve actual war), and can be dressed up in patriotic language and
worst-case scenarios -- but have the effect of being a balance wheel on
aggregate demand, reducing fluctuations, even on a world scale. It's the
modern equivalent of Keynes' idea that in order to get the economy out of
depression we could build pyramids.
Note also that it's not those in power who will suffer from the costs of
this program -- at least in the short-run. It's only over long periods of
time that the waste of resources hurts the country's supply-side economic
growth. But the power elite doesn't care about that. They also don't worry
about offending other countries, since "the U.S. is the only super-power."
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
