Missile 'defence' – a tool for power, not peace

What does the United States government want with a missile defence system?

Supporters of the system say the US needs to defend itself against ‘rogue states’ launching missiles at it. Yet whilst missile technologies are spreading and weapons of mass destruction present a grave threat to us all, it is extremely unlikely that any state would use a missile to attack the US. Missile launches can be traced immediately and would provoke a devastating response from the US.

How much would it cost?

According to the US Congressional Budget Office (visit http://64.177.207.201/pages/8_277.html for more info), the system will cost between $158 billion and $238 billion, whether or not it can be made to work. US military spending exceeded $400 billion in 2003, accounting for nearly half of global military expenditure, whilst 11 million children die every year from preventable causes arising from poverty (World Health Organisation figures), itself a major cause of present and future war.

So what is ‘missile defence’ really for?

The US wants to use the system to project power over other countries and so become economically, politically and militarily more potent – an imperial power. You don’t need to take our word for it - figures who now hold senior positions in the US Administration have said that the true purposes of the ‘defences’ is to obtain more power. These include the Vice President, Defence Secretary and Deputy Defence Secretary in a document available at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Despite international treaty obligations on the US and other nuclear weapons states to negotiate nuclear disarmament, the US is committed to keeping nuclear weapons ‘over the coming decades’. Nuclear weapons are genocidal, yet the US sees possessing them as important in political struggles with other nations. The ‘missile defence’ system is wanted not so much to defend but as to enhance the potency of US nuclear weapons. By analogy, the soldier with a sword and shield has the offensive edge in any on the one with only a sword. In this light, the logic of the US Vice President and Defence Secretary is clear in their claim that missile defences are required ‘…to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world.’

Overall, the system is part of a misguided concept of security based on the delusion that the larger military machine we can build, the safer we will all be. This logic only leads to more weapons, more enmity and a greater risk of nuclear conflict in the future.

What has this to do with Britain?

The military bases at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in Yorkshire will form part of the US system.

According to an opinion poll of 2001, 70% of British people think the system would make Britain more likely to be attacked if we are part of the system. The radar at Fylingdales will form the eyes of the system – if Fylingdales were ‘blinded’, the whole system would be useless.

Britain is now considering whether it would want to be part of an extended missile defence system covering Europe. This would not make Europe any safer from the far greater threat of terrorism using weapons of mass destruction, which would be unlikely to involve missiles at all. And it would surely only encourage other countries with nuclear weapons to build more in order potentially to overwhelm the defence system.

We urgently need nuclear disarmament, not even more weapons, and a European missile defence system would surely put this urgent goal further out of reach.

As if that wasn’t enough…

The system would be one step on a road towards putting weapons in space for the first time. This is US policy. 'We're going to fight a war in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space,' according to General Joseph W Ashy, Commander-in-Chief of US Space Command (1996). For Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfovitz, ‘Space offers attractive options not only for missile defense but for a broad range of interrelated civil and military missions. It truly is the ultimate high ground.’

Space weapons open a new arena of warfare when we should keep space for peace!

What is the alternative?

The progressive, verifiable reduction and elimination of nuclear warheads and missiles from all countries and the preservation and extension of treaty agreements to reduce enmity between nations are the better way to deal with the threat of future war and nuclear conflict. This is possible – it has been achieved before, for example with a US-Soviet agreement to scrap over 2600 intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe in the 1980s.

What we can do

• Write to your MP and tell them you oppose Missile Defense. Tell them what's wrong with the system and where the faults are with the proponents' arguments. Ask for their opinion and have them forward your comments on to the Secretary for Defence. Get your MP's details here

• Find out more by looking at the websites of individual MDWG members. All have excellent materials on Missile Defense and some offer e-mail lists and news services so you can keep up to date.

• Join the demonstrations at key UK Missile Defense locations. There are regular demonstrations in Yorkshire at Menwith Hill and Fylingdales. There are also demonstrations across the UK at linked US bases such as Molesworth, Feltwell and Croughton and at linked Universities such as Sheffield University.

• Get more involved with an active group in your area - one of the MDWG members is likely to be active in your region