With last weekend's surprise nuclear test, North Korea has reached the final stage of its crash course to develop thermonuclear weapons that can reach and destroy U.S. cities. So why are we not on a crash course to protect our cities from North Korean nuclear missiles?
Answer: Because for more than three decades Democrats have done everything in their power to prevent, obstruct or delay the deployment of ballistic missile defense.
Opposition to missile defense has been an article of faith for Democrats since President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983. Sen. Edward Kennedy led the early opposition to what Democrats derisively labeled Star Wars, denouncing missile defense as a "mirage" and "a certain prescription for an arms race in outer space."
Reagan nonetheless moved forward with research and development, and his successor, George H.W. Bush, put missile defense on track for deployment with the Global Protection Against Limited Strikes program. But as soon as President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he terminated GPALS and cut national missile defense funding by 80 percent while downgrading it from an acquisition program to a technology demonstration program. Clinton also signed an agreement to revive the moribund Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned deployment of missile defense and whose status had come into question with the 1991 collapse of our treaty partner the Soviet Union.
When President George W. Bush came to office, he revitalized missile defense efforts and withdrew from the ABM Treaty. Democrats were more upset than the Russians. Sen. Joseph Biden declared, "The thing we remain the least vulnerable to is an ICBM attack from another nation . . . This premise that one day Kim Jong Il or someone will wake up one morning and say, 'Aha, San Francisco' is specious."
Bush deployed the first ground-based interceptors in California and Alaska and put in place a plan to deploy 44 interceptors by 2009. He reached a historic agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic to deploy defenses.
If we had continued the Bush program over the past eight years, we would now have a robust array of defenses against any North Korean ICBM. We would be able to target a North Korean missile in the boost phase, and if that failed we would have 44 ground-based interceptors armed with hundreds of warheads that could be fired to take it out in mid-course.
But we did not continue the Bush program. President Barack Obama slashed funding for ballistic missile defense by 25 percent. As part of his failed "reset" with Russia, he scrapped Bush's agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic.
Amazingly, on taking office, President Donald Trump's budget continued Obama's missile defense cuts, reducing funding by another $300 million. Trump has since recognized his mistake, promising "We are going to be increasing the anti-missiles by a substantial amount of billions of dollars." Time to do so is short. He should immediately deliver Congress an emergency supplemental spending bill to speed the deployment of ground-based interceptors, and he should revive the Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Airborne Laser and Kinetic Energy Interceptor--and then work with Congress on a long-term plan to build and deploy space-based interceptors.
In 1983, Reagan asked, "Isn't it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war?" For the Democrats, the answer was no. No one is happier about that today than Kim Jong Un.
Editorial on 09/08/2017