Defending U.S. Against What Missiles?

When North Korea lobbed a test missile over a corner of Japan, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott immediately scheduled another vote to mandate deployment of a ballistic missile defense system, or what used to be known as “Star Wars.”

This is no surprise. When Islamic terrorists blew up U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, Republicans demanded action on the missile defense system. When U.S. citizens blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, Republicans demanded action on it. When the Russian economy went belly up, Republicans demanded action on it.

These devotions are a touching display of piety over policy. Ever since Ronald Reagan revealed his simmering Hollywood vision of a defensive dome over the United States, Republicans have paid tribute to his fantasy. Nothing--not reality, cost, military opposition--has sapped their fealty.

The current Republican measure mandates deployment of a missile defense system as “soon as technologically feasible.” This condition is a recent and begrudging concession of faith to reason. Prior Republican bills demanded deployment on a date certain without concern for whether the thing would work.

There is the rub. Despite Reagan’s undying belief in special effects, no one has been able to build a system that works outside of the movies. “Hitting a bullet with a bullet in space,” as Gen. Lester Lyles, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, terms the task, isn’t that easy. The U.S. has spent more than $100 billion on missile defense, about $45 billion in the decade after Reagan’s vision, and has nothing to show for it.

Moreover, the $100 billion has been wasted on building an impossible defense against an implausible threat. Russia and China alone have missiles that can reach these shores, and they seem disinterested or deterred from launching them. North Korea, Iraq, Iran and footloose terrorists in the Afghani hills do not possess such weaponry, and the intelligence community estimates it would take them about 15 years to gain it.

Secular authority--the U.S. military--is, to say the least, skeptical about pursuing the conservative grail. The generals would prefer to spend the cash on weapons they can use rather than on illusions they can’t. Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently wrote Sen. James Imhofe (R-Okla.) to reiterate the military’s reservations, reminding him that the more likely threat comes not from ballistic missiles but from “unconventional, terrorist-style delivery vehicles,” which is militaryspeak for truck bombs. That missile defense offers no answer to the actual ways terrorists strike at U.S. targets--by smuggling bombs close to their targets by car or truck or suitcase--never seems to register among the believers.

The Clinton administration, ever anxious to avoid a fight on national security, has not scrimped on the search for missile defense. It will spend about $4 billion on missile defense programs this year and more than $23 billion in the next five years. It has committed to a “three plus three” plan to spend three years developing the system prior to three years deploying it (assuming that there is something to deploy). A panel of defense experts calls this a “rush to failure.”

Republicans say that $100 billion is not enough. Ironically, if anyone took the current legislation seriously, it would surely weaken rather than strengthen U.S. defenses by committing billions to building a primitive system. And it starves money from programs, like defensive “hardening” of U.S. embassies and military bases, that might actually offer some real protection.

Republicans hope they can revive a bit of the magic of the old Dutchman if they believe strongly enough in Reagan’s defense fantasy. And they are tantalized by polls that show most Americans are surprised to hear that we don’t already have a missile defense system.

But no matter how many times they click their heels, the magic doesn’t seem to work. Bob Dole tried to make “Star Wars” a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, but Americans are more focused on immediate domestic concerns. And when they actually hear that we’ve blown $100 billion chasing this dream, they think enough is enough. That’s a public scandal that costs us a lot more than the president’s private ones.