Morality Play: Star Wars vs. Nuclear Abolition

Supporters of a "Star Wars" National Missile Defense (NMD) system often frame their argument in appealing terms, stating that missile defense would offer us freedom from the threat of a nuclear missile attack. Proponents paint missile defense as an antidote to the immoral, outmoded Cold War doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD, which holds that nuclear-armed adversaries will be deterred from launching a nuclear strike by the threat of certain retaliation and annihilation.

For example, conservative Christian political activist Chuck Colson, whose daily BreakPoint commentary is carried by more than 1,000 radio stations around the country, opined on January 19 that deploying a national missile defense "…can restore sanity to our national security policies and deliver us from the moral insanity imposed by a forty-year relic of the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)." On the moral insanity of continuing to base our security on the threat to incinerate millions of people, politely called "nuclear deterrence," Colson was silent.

If we raise morality in the context of nuclear weapons, as we must, then we are "in for a dime, in for a dollar," and have to realize that no religious, moral, or ethical code can justify the use, threat to use, or even existence of nuclear weapons. Far from posing a more moral policy, missile defense advocates shrink from moral leadership by accepting the continued existence of these horrific weapons that could end life on Earth as we know it.

It is unfair and inaccurate to allege that opponents of Star Wars seek to maintain MAD, or what has more appropriately been called the nuclear balance of terror. Advocates of the only real solution to the nuclear threat — the total, verifiable, enduring elimination of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth — are not defenders of MAD. We oppose Star Wars because, while supporters say it will make us more secure, it in fact will do the opposite by starting a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China, which will then likely spread to India and Pakistan.

There are the other important reasons to oppose Star Wars. Independent scientists, including 50 Noble Prize laureates, say it won’t work. Star Wars will rob tens or more likely hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars from education, health care, and the environment. The alleged threats NMD is supposed to counter, an attack by a "rogue" state or an accidental missile launch by Russia, are overstated. None of the "states of concern" as they are now called, North Korea, Iran, or Iraq, has ever flight tested a missile capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead, and while US relations with Iraq remain adversarial, remarkable steps toward rapprochement with Iran and, particularly, with North Korea have occurred in the past few years. The threat of an accidental launch by Russia, while real and a cause for serious concern, is better addressed by working with Russia to improve its security, command, and control over its nuclear arsenal, and by striving to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether.

Add it all up and it looks like the real role of Star Wars is not to defend the United States, but rather to defend the interests of the weapons contractors who pumped over $13 million in campaign cash into election campaigns over the past two years to make sure Star Wars and other exorbitant Cold War dinosaurs get funded by your tax dollars and mine. Dr. Nira Schwartz, a former TRW senior engineer who blew the whistle on the contractor’s fraudulent reporting of Star Wars radar test results, said it best: "It’s not a defense of the United States. It’s a conspiracy to allow them to milk the government. They are creating for themselves a job for life." Dr. Schwarz is suing TRW and lead Star Wars contractor Boeing for violation of the False Claims Act and wrongful employment retaliation. Boeing recently had its contract renewed by the Pentagon for $6 billion. With options, the amount could balloon to $13.7 billion by 2007.

Predictably, supporters of missile defense scoff at the notion of abolishing nuclear weapons worldwide. "You can’t put the genie back in the bottle," they say. The knowledge of how to build nuclear arms is widely available and can never be wiped from the collective human memory, so we are doomed to live with nuclear weapons forever.

Eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide, while not a simple matter, is much more realistic, and would make the US and the world more secure than an illusory and ultimately fruitless pursuit of security through the provocative, unproven, so far failed technology of missile defense. Cheaper, too, by far. The land-, sea-, and space-based version of Star Wars favored by the Bush Administration would likely cost at least $100 billion, maybe several times that, on top of the $60 billion we’ve spent on missile defense schemes since Ronald Reagan proposed Star Wars in 1983, with absolutely nothing to show for it. That’s your tax dollars and mine that could be better used for education, health care, affordable housing and the environment.

Nobody believes nuclear weapons can be eliminated tomorrow. But serious, thoughtful people including former heads of state like Jimmy Carter and Mikhail Gorbachev and former admirals and generals who had their fingers on nuclear triggers, have come out for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. High-level commissions have outlined the necessary steps toward total nuclear disarmament, including measures for verification and control of nuclear materials. A draft model treaty on eliminating nuclear weapons, similar to the treaty that outlawed chemical weapons, has been circulated for discussion at the United Nations. Abolishing nuclear weapons would be a process; nations would negotiate the steps, work together to verify progress, agree on how to deal with potential violators. Confidence would be built along the way; we’d be building the path by walking it.

There’s no such thing as a risk-free world, especially because the nuclear genie is out of the bottle. So there are two choices: work to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide, understanding the risks and benefits involved, or pursue security through missile defense, with our eyes wide open that it will spur nuclear proliferation and a new arms race. It seems to me there’s only one moral option here.

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