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.
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.