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T A B L E+T A L K Will the murder of a prominent human rights lawyer derail the Northern Ireland peace process? Opine in the International Issues area of Table Talk
R E C E N T L Y A death foretold "You start to think that he's dead" The question that won't go away The China syndrome The danceable tragedy - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Star Wars lite?
BY JOSHUA MICAH MARSHALL | Wednesday's 97-3 Senate vote to commit the United States to building a national missile defense "as soon as technologically possible" marked the first real legislative victory for congressional Republicans in more than a year. After months of getting beat up by Democrats on issues like Social Security, the GOP has managed to pull together what they think might be a winning agenda on national defense. "Anything that forces national defense on the agenda is manna for Republicans," one veteran GOP strategist told Salon Wednesday. "We've been wandering in the desert for so long." Republicans were quick to point out that Wednesday's vote marked a stark turnabout for Senate Democrats and the White House, both of which have consistently opposed legislation like the missile defense system. For years Democrats have argued that a proposed national missile defense -- from Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), lampooned as "Star Wars," to more modest proposals -- would cost too much and probably wouldn't work. Even more important, Democrats have argued, a national missile defense would destabilize our relations with countries such as Russia and China. And those concerns are echoed by many foreign relations experts. Lawrence Korb, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Salon Wednesday that if the United States actually deploys a national missile defense it could persuade the Russians that the U.S. is not really serious about arms control and convince the Chinese that our aim is not really to engage them, but rather to contain them. With North Korea's recent ballistic missile advances, there now seems to be bipartisan agreement that some limited missile defense to protect against attacks from rogue nations is a good idea. However, many conservative supporters of a national missile defense seem to see that very limited option as a bridge toward something more like SDI -- a complete defense against all ballistic missile attacks. And missile defense skeptics believe the capacity to build even a limited system -- to protect Japan, say, from North Korea -- is probably a decade away, and would never provide full protection. So what happened? Why the Democrats' change of heart? Democrats agreed to support the bill Tuesday after the passage of a compromise amendment designed to ensure that the bill's passage will not interfere with ongoing arms reduction negotiations with the Russians. But Republicans on the Hill were arguing that Democrats had simply caved since Republicans seemed to have public opinion on their side. When asked about the compromise, a staffer from the office of one conservative senator said, "What's the compromise? It's always been the U.S. policy to continue arms control reductions. That was never an issue. This was just a fig-leaf for Democrats who realize this issue has majority support." Democrats, needless to say, took a contrary view. Privately, some called the whole bill a meaningless piece of legislation meant only for political effect. "This is already our policy [to develop a missile defense]. The money's already been allocated," one Democratic staffer commented. "What's the purpose of passing this besides politics? [The Republicans] just don't have an agenda." There is some truth in that claim. The White House's proposed budget for next year does include more than $10 billion in new funds to develop a national missile system, which some saw as a questionable political gesture by Clinton to the military during his impeachment crisis. But the significance of Wednesday's vote is political and symbolic. One of the greatest frustrations for Republicans in recent years has been the fact that the national defense has played such a small role in national political debates. But in recent weeks Republicans have been able to turn that around. The furor over Chinese nuclear espionage and the on-again, off-again negotiations over Kosovo have allowed Republicans to put national defense back on the public agenda and focus the nation's attention on a topic that unites their constituents and divides Democrats.
N E X T+P A G E+| Reagan-era nostalgia |
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