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.
These recent attacks have increased the US awareness of a growing
threat. Proponents state that given the growing ballistic missile industry
in other countries, the US has to prepare itself for attacks of any kind.
They claim that the building of a National Missile Defense will provide
more security to the people of the United States, and will in fact assure
the safety of every citizen of the United States within its territory.
Especially after the recent attacks, this is what the majority of the
people want at present. Even though these reasons seem to indicate that we
should implement the National Missile Defense System, there are many sound
arguments against it.
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.
