Missile Defense System - Buren for the United States

  • Просмотров 4116
  • Скачиваний 501
  • Размер файла 5
    Кб

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