Nuclear shield may create more problems than solutions

The Bush administration is looking to pick a fight with Russia.

The administration has already decided to build a national missile defense system: a virtual "shield" protecting the U.S. from nuclear missiles. The construction of a missile shield will violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty struck between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1972.

Russia, which still honors the treaty it signed in its previous incarnation, is understandably peeved. Shield advocates, of course, have claimed that Russia has nothing to worry about. The system is really meant to counteract the threat from "states of concern": hostile states like Iran and North Korea that are beginning to develop nuclear capabilities. The dissolution of the ABM Treaty may simply be a necessary — and reasonable — cost of protecting the United States from new and irresponsible members of the international "nuclear family."

Damage to our relationship with Russia is just an externality. We aren't trying to escalate anything here.

Sure we aren't. The fact is, the shield is anti-Russia and the Bush administration isn't afraid to say so. In a February 14 interview on PBS's NewsHour, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield '54 accused Russia of "actively proliferating" by selling nuclear technology to states of concern. Russia, said Rumsfield, has no right to get upset about the anti-missile shield when it's part of the problem that the shield is meant to address.

By building a national missile defense system under the pretense of protecting itself from rogue states, the United States gets to begin the nuclear arms race all over again — without seeming to. With a U.S. national missile defense system in the works, and no more ABM Treaty, why shouldn't Russia build more weapons, or sell nuclear technology to potential allies?

Heck, why not build an anti-missile shield of its own?

Of course, with all that new firepower on Russia's side, the U.S. would be compelled to increase its nuclear arsenal as well. And then Russia would have to respond in kind. You see where this is going.

It's nice to know that the United States is capable, financially and technologically, of creating a national missile defense system. But there is certainly a more delicate and responsible way to use that capability than by deciding, unilaterally, to build the system and build it now. Why not use the threat of a shield to convince Russia to lay off of the arms and technology trading with states of concern? Why not try to tone down nuclear proliferation instead of toning it up?

In trying to make America safer, the Bush administration might just end up making the world less safe. The United States should learn a lesson from history and from Hollywood: whether it's the original edition or the re-release, the sequel to Star Wars is always "The Empire Strikes Back." Melissa Waage is a politics major from Johnson City, TN. She can be reached at mrwaage@princeton.edu.