Synopses & Reviews
In the past four decades, the United States has spent $85 billion pursuing the fantasy of an effective missile defense system to shield our nation against the threat of a nuclear attack. Recent public tests, while less exotic than some of the original Star Wars proposals, were spectacular failures and call into question the whole prograM&Apos;s rationale. Neither the land-based system proposed by the Clinton administration, nor the alternatives proposed by earlier administrations, would ever work--regardless of how much R&D money is channeled into the project. Rather than enhancing national security, these doomed efforts would provoke a new arms race and alienate key allies. The authors apply their extensive insiders' expertise to argue that thoughtful diplomacy is the only real answer to meet America's national security goals.
Like President Reagan with his Star Wars program, President Bush has again made national missile defense (NMD) a national priority at a cost which may exceed $150 billion in the next ten years. Defense experts Eisendrath, Goodman, and Marsh contend that recent tests give little confidence that any of the systems under consideration--land-based, boost-phase, or laser-driven--have any chance of effective deployment within decades. The interests of the military-industrial complex and the unilateralist views of the Bush administration are driving NMD, not a desire to promote national security.
Rather than increase U.S. security, the plans of the current administration, if implemented, will erode it. NMD will heighten the threat from China and Russia, alienate key allies, and provoke a new arms race and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, all in response to a greatly exaggerated threat from so-called rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran. Thoughtful diplomacy, not a misguided foreign policy based on a hopeless dream of a Fortress America, is the real answer to meeting Americas security goals. Designed to stimulate interest and debate among the public and policy-makers, The Phantom Defense provides solid facts and combines scientific, geopolitical, historical, and strategic analysis to critique the delusion of national missile defense, while suggesting a more effective alternative.
Review
Recommended for general readers, upper-division undergraduates and above.Choice
Review
This volume provides a comprehensive domestic-political, geopolitical, and technological assessment of the merits of National Missile Defense (NMD).Political Science Quarterly
Review
A sober look at dangers that can be created when basic truths of engineering and science are pushed aside by political ideology, opportunism, and simple bad judgment.Theodore A. Postol Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Security Studies Program and Program in Science, Technology, and Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Review
An important contribution to the vigorous debate we must engage in if we are to find the right answer to the critical question of national missile defense.Senator John F. Kerry
Review
That nationale for mutual "offense-only" deterrence animates a very large literature that dates back to the dawn of the missile age, to which The Phantom Defense is the latest substantial contribution.American Political Science Review
Synopsis
In the past four decades, the United States has spent $85 billion pursuing the fantasy of an effective missile defense system to shield our nation against the threat of a nuclear attack. Recent public tests, while less exotic than some of the original "Star Wars" proposals, were spectacular failures and call into question the whole program's rationale. Neither the land-based system proposed by the Clinton administration, nor the alternatives proposed by earlier administrations, would ever work--regardless of how much R&D money is channeled into the project. Rather than enhancing national security, these doomed efforts would provoke a new arms race and alienate key allies. The authors apply their extensive insiders' expertise to argue that thoughtful diplomacy is the only real answer to meet America's national security goals.
Synopsis
In the past four decades, the United States has spent $85 billion pursuing the fantasy of an effective missile defense system to shield our nation against the threat of a nuclear attack. Recent public tests, while less exotic than some of the original "Star Wars" proposals, were spectacular failures and call into question the whole program's rationale. Neither the land-based system proposed by the Clinton administration, nor the alternatives proposed by earlier administrations, would ever work--regardless of how much R&D money is channeled into the project. Rather than enhancing national security, these doomed efforts would provoke a new arms race and alienate key allies. The authors apply their extensive insiders' expertise to argue that thoughtful diplomacy is the only real answer to meet America's national security goals.
Synopsis
Demonstrates how, rather than enhancing American national security, a national missile defense would destroy it by provoking a new arms race.
Synopsis
The authors apply their extensive insiders' expertise to argue that thoughtful diplomacy is the only real answer to meet America's national security goals.
About the Author
CRAIG EISENDRATH is Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy, a foreign policy institute in Washington, D.C., and a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer with expertise in nuclear and outer space issues.MELVIN A. GOODMAN is Professor of National Security at the National War College and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy.GERALD E. MARSH, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, was a consultant to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations on strategic nuclear policy and technology for many years.
Table of Contents
Introduction
History and Mythology
Deja Vu All Over Again: A Short History of "Star Wars"
Anti-Missle Defense and the Political Maze
Two Views of the World
The Threat, and Efforts to Meet It
The Exaggerated Threat of Ballistic Missiles
Why National Missile Defense Won't Work
Other Proposed NMD Systems
International Consequences, and Policy Alternatives
Geopolitical Implications of National Missile Defense
Arms Control and Policy Alternatives
Appendix One: Countermeasures
Appendix Two: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
Appendix Three: The Center for International Policy