One of the phoniest demonstrations of grandstanding indulged in by Walter Mondale in the late, non-lamented presidential campaign of 1984 was his tirade against Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars. Let’s “keep the heavens free from war,” he emoted.
The fact is that the Soviets have already taken weapons of war to outer space (please, not to Heaven), and the real question is, will we confront and compete with those weapons up there? Or, will we wait to take action until after their weapons have exploded on our homes and cities?
A new study by the respected Heritage Foundation gives chapter and verse on how the Soviets have already deployed “most of the essential building blocks for an effective countrywide strategic defense system.” In other words, the Soviets are far ahead of us in protecting their own population; so it is patently dishonest for anyone to claim that our proposed High Frontier non-nuclear defense system would “accelerate the arms race.”
The Heritage Foundation report shows that, since signing the 1972 SALT I ABM Treaty, the Soviets have spent more on defensive weapons than on offensive weapons and now are probably outspending the twice-as-wealthy United States about 4-to-1. Russia (where people endure perpetual scarcity in food and essential consumer goods) has been committing massive resources to its own Star Wars strategy.
Soviet activity in the defensive field was already in gear by the mid-1950s. U.S. intelligence discovered an ABM test region in Siberia in 1957. It is probable that the Soviets tested an ABM interceptor against an ICBM in flight during their big series of nuclear tests in 1961.
By the late 1960s, Soviet inferiority in ABM technology was so obvious that the diplomats rushed to the rescue and accomplished what their scientists could not. They achieved Soviet superiority in defensive weapons by persuading the United States to stop our ABM development and deployment and enter into SALT negotiations.
It is well documented that the principal Soviet objective in pushing for the SALT I ABM Treaty was to stop in its tracks the U.S. deployment of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) which had been successfully tested and approved by both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Soviets succeeded: the 1972 treaty codified the peculiar notion of leaving our nation without any defensive system to shoot down incoming missiles (otherwise known as MAD: Mutual Assured Destruction).
The SALT I Treaty allowed each side to build one ABM site only. Our one and only in Grand Forks, ND, was dismantled under legislation sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy the day after it became operational.
The Soviets, however, who did not share Kennedy’s pacifist illusions, have ever since been building defensive systems as fast as their technology permits. The Soviets have built ABM interceptors surrounding Moscow in order to protect missiles, industry, and millions of people, 10,000 surface-to-air missiles with some ABM or anti-cruise missile capabilities, and a tremendous fleet of advanced interceptor aircraft.
Soviet space projects include a space shuttle, a very large expendable launch vehicle comparable to the U.S. Saturn V, a second generation anti-satellite system, manned space planes, and permanently manned space stations.
The Soviets have been acquiring the prerequisites for a high-technology space-based missile defense. They have done ten years of research on directed-energy weapons, developed a nuclear explosive generator, tested lasers against low-orbiting spacecraft, carried out a number of “electric beam” experiments, and have 10,000 scientists working in high-energy programs.
Now that the Soviets are confronted with a U.S. President who believes in the elementary proposition that America must be defended with a defensive system that defends, that experienced negotiator Gromyko has been globe-trotting to try to stop the United States from building a defensive system while the Soviets race ahead. They want to slow the pace of our SDI, divide us from our allies, and complete their own ABM systems on schedule.
It should be obvious to the most starry-eyed of dreamers that the only reason the Soviets have come to the bargaining table is that Ronald Reagan is steadfast in his plan to build a defensive system which would make nuclear war obsolete by (a) deterring attack, deliberate or accidental, and (b) saving lives if that unhappy event occurred.
