A
tragic flaw in the "Star Wars" plan has been generally
overlooked.
Even if the Soviets did not execute a First
Strike against the United States before the installation of this
defensive system over America and her allies (which purportedly
would virtually render Soviet strategic missiles useless and
their nation, thus, defenseless), even if the sensitive Star
Wars technology developed were shared with the Soviets (which
American military experts warn against), even if this "shield" were over 90% effective (which would be impossible
to guarantee but which would be needed to definitely prevent a "Nuclear Winter", in which nuclear firestorm smoke would
probably produce such darkness and coldness as to cause the
extinction of our species worldwide), even if Star Wars could
defend against low-flying Soviet cruise missiles (which no one
even implies), and even if the personal delivery of nuclear
devices by foreign terrorists could be prevented (which seems
impossible, given our intensive but generally unsuccessful
attempts at stopping even peaceful illegal aliens violating our
extensive borders), the United States would still be as
vulnerable to a Soviet nuclear threat as today!
The leaders in the Kremlin, not noted for
their compassion or respect for human rights, could simply
threaten their own peoples with a direct nuclear attack (not
necessitating the use of the intercontinental or even
intermediate-range missiles that Star Wars could defend
against); and by threatening to execute "patriotic" nuclear
blasts throughout their nation (the most expansive on Earth), they
would in effect threaten the human population of the entire
world with annihilation, because of the resultant worldwide
devastation, from such scientifically possible, probable, or
definite effects as a Nuclear Winter; the drift of fallout; or
the destruction of Earth's vital, ultraviolet-light-screening
atmospheric "umbrella" of ozone.
Modern nuclear military strategy is indeed
perverted: In our "M.A.D." era, of Mutual Assured
Destruction, not only is attacking one's enemy tantamount
to committing suicide but also committing suicide is tantamount
to attacking one's enemy!
"Sword and Shield" analogies are outmoded;
and to spend a penny (let alone the proposed tens of billions of
dollars) on such a militarily useless, yet destabilizing system
as Star Wars, especially during this age of unprecedented,
enormous, economy-threatening Federal budget deficits,
especially at the expense of humanistic and other
peace-promoting activities, is patently insane and obscene!
Additionally, in this era in which the U.S. has
enough nuclear weaponry to kill every person on the planet many
times over, we already have plenty of other, less expensive
but more substantial "bargaining chips", for arms talks;
and you can bet that the Soviet leaders know it! I'm sure
they'd love to see us bankrupt ourselves on such schemes as
Star Wars...which, as demonstrated above, would not change the
balance of terror in the world -- perhaps that is why their "gambit" is to express in public such
"concern" over it,
or perhaps the Soviet leadership is as foolish as it is
power-hungry.
In any case, Star Wars is science fiction!