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The Phantom Defense
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The authors (Eisendrath and Goodman are senior fellows with the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C.; Marsh is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory) present a sound indictment of the missile defense plans of the Bush administration. The thesis of this compressed, not overly technical book is that effective defense against incoming ballistic missiles is impossible given the current state of technology. Countermeasures (camouflaging the real warhead, decoys) against a defensive system can be devised by an attacking state at low cost, so the defensive system cannot reliably distinguish real from sham targets. The authors see no point in pouring $100 billion or more into a system so fraught with technical difficulty and so vulnerable to unsophisticated countermeasures. If national missile defense is the "phantom" of the book's title, then why has it been pursued so intensively by the right wing of American politics? For the authors, the answer lies in the alliance of defense contractors, who have benefited from the enormous sums spent on Star Wars initiatives since the Reagan years, with politicians on the right, who batten on campaign contributions from those contractors. The authors trace how pressure to portray missile defense as feasible has led to exaggeration of threats, rigged tests and suppression of inconvenient data. This book presents a partisan but powerful case, one that advocates of national missile defense will be called upon to rebut. The outcome of the debate matters, and not only because of the money at stake. If the authors here are correct, deploying even an ineffective missile defense will trigger a renewed arms race and jeopardize rather than enhance U.S. security.
From Booklist
The authors, veterans of the military, the CIA, the U.S. Foreign Service, and Argonne National Laboratory, declare that "national security must take precedence over partisan and self-serving policies; national missile defense should be turned down in the national interest." This brief, focused book explains this damning conclusion. Part 1 examines the history of "Star Wars," the mythology that has been cultivated around the dream of a national missile defense (NMD) system, and the place of NMD in a larger unilateralist worldview gaining strength in Washington. Part 2 dissects the threat NMD is intended to meet, explains "why national missile defense won't work," and describes the flaws of newer, more exotic forms of NMD currently being proposed. Part 3 considers the geopolitical consequences of a unilateral U.S. effort to implement NMD and discusses the arms-control and policy alternatives. Testing possible NMD systems has already cost the nation billions of dollars; perhaps before we decide to implement this technology, voters and politicians need to consider the questions raised here. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
The authors (Eisendrath and Goodman are senior fellows with the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C.; Marsh is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory) present a sound indictment of the missile defense plans of the Bush administration. The thesis of this compressed, not overly technical book is that effective defense against incoming ballistic missiles is impossible given the current state of technology. Countermeasures (camouflaging the real warhead, decoys) against a defensive system can be devised by an attacking state at low cost, so the defensive system cannot reliably distinguish real from sham targets. The authors see no point in pouring $100 billion or more into a system so fraught with technical difficulty and so vulnerable to unsophisticated countermeasures. If national missile defense is the "phantom" of the book's title, then why has it been pursued so intensively by the right wing of American politics? For the authors, the answer lies in the alliance of defense contractors, who have benefited from the enormous sums spent on Star Wars initiatives since the Reagan years, with politicians on the right, who batten on campaign contributions from those contractors. The authors trace how pressure to portray missile defense as feasible has led to exaggeration of threats, rigged tests and suppression of inconvenient data. This book presents a partisan but powerful case, one that advocates of national missile defense will be called upon to rebut. The outcome of the debate matters, and not only because of the money at stake. If the authors here are correct, deploying even an ineffective missile defense will trigger a renewed arms race and jeopardize rather than enhance U.S. security.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The authors, veterans of the military, the CIA, the U.S. Foreign Service, and Argonne National Laboratory, declare that "national security must take precedence over partisan and self-serving policies; national missile defense should be turned down in the national interest." This brief, focused book explains this damning conclusion. Part 1 examines the history of "Star Wars," the mythology that has been cultivated around the dream of a national missile defense (NMD) system, and the place of NMD in a larger unilateralist worldview gaining strength in Washington. Part 2 dissects the threat NMD is intended to meet, explains "why national missile defense won't work," and describes the flaws of newer, more exotic forms of NMD currently being proposed. Part 3 considers the geopolitical consequences of a unilateral U.S. effort to implement NMD and discusses the arms-control and policy alternatives. Testing possible NMD systems has already cost the nation billions of dollars; perhaps before we decide to implement this technology, voters and politicians need to consider the questions raised here. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The history of anti-missile defense, whether called anti-ballistic missiles, "Star Wars," or the National Missile Defense system is, in Yogi Berra's ironic words, a continuing story of "deja vu all over again." Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tional missile defense, mock warhead, exoatmospheric kill vehicle, balloon decoys, threat cloud, theater defenses, attacking missile, missile defense system, arms control regime, missile treaty, ballistic missile threat, theater missile defense, new arms race, boost phase Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, North Korea, Soviet Union, Star Wars, United Nations, Department of Defense, White House, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, New York Times, President Reagan, State Department, Air Force, High Frontier, General Accounting Office, Non-Proliferation Treaty, Ronald Reagan, South Korea, Union of Concerned Scientists, Brilliant Pebbles, George Bush, Gulf War, Paul Nitze, The Brookings Institution, Donald Rumsfeld, Edward Teller New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The history of anti-missile defense, whether called anti-ballistic missiles, "Star Wars," or the National Missile Defense system is, in Yogi Berra's ironic words, a continuing story of "deja vu all over again." Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tional missile defense, mock warhead, exoatmospheric kill vehicle, balloon decoys, threat cloud, theater defenses, attacking missile, missile defense system, arms control regime, missile treaty, ballistic missile threat, theater missile defense, new arms race, boost phase Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, North Korea, Soviet Union, Star Wars, United Nations, Department of Defense, White House, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, New York Times, President Reagan, State Department, Air Force, High Frontier, General Accounting Office, Non-Proliferation Treaty, Ronald Reagan, South Korea, Union of Concerned Scientists, Brilliant Pebbles, George Bush, Gulf War, Paul Nitze, The Brookings Institution, Donald Rumsfeld, Edward Teller New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 38
books:
See all 38 books this book cites
- Way Out There In the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War by Frances FitzGerald on page 26, page 60, and page 138
- Department of Defense (Know Your Government) by Andrew Cohen on page 115, page 136, and Back Matter
- Ballistic Missile Defense by Ashton Carter on page 80, and page 117
- High Frontier by Daniel O. Graham on page 8, and page 9
- The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil on page 57, and page 60
See all 38 books this book cites
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