Since the end of the Cold War, hopes for a nonnuclear world have run high. In the real world, however, moves toward disarmament have suffered one setback after another. Now there are disturbing signs of a relapse in the U.S.-Russian strategic arms reduction talks. A chief stumbling block is the U.S. plan for National Missile Defense, a high-tech "space shield" designed to protect U.S. territory against long-range missile attacks.
Already the new Russian government of President Vladimir Putin, who took office earlier this month, is trying to check deployment of the system by the Clinton administration, which is in the final stages of the project's evaluation. The NMD system would shoot down incoming ballistic missiles before they hit their targets by detecting them with high-accuracy radars and early warning satellites. It is essentially the same as the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative.
NMD raises two fundamental questions. One, why is it receiving so much attention, now that the Cold War has ended? And two, does it not run counter to existing arms-control treaties?