Recently the Prime Minister of Canada, currently Paul 'Mr. Dithers' Martin made a firm decision. He decided - no doubt after scores of focus groups were consulted and polls were taken - that Canada would not participate in Ballistic Missile Defense. Now naturally I am opposed to BMD, I do not believe it will protect us against terrorism, a far more likely threat than an easily traceable and easy to retaliate against ballistic missile. I also not believe that BMD's destabilizing effect on relations with countries like China and Russia outweigh BMD's stabilizing effect on our peace of mind.
On the other hand, for more than a year, the Prime Minister had voiced his support for BMD, chiefly, it appeared, because BMD would mean better relations with the United States. If you are going to support a program as idiotic as BMD, I guess maintaining positive relations with the US is the best excuse money can buy. Then the Prime Minister proved yet again worthy of the title Mister Dither's, he dithered and 14 months after assuming the highest [defacto, the highest office is the Governor General] office in the land the Prime Minister announced that Canada would not support the BMD program.
That the Prime Minister could not stick with his beliefs long enough to keep a promise is, to my way of thinking, deplorable, but many people think that the horrors of BMD outweigh the Prime Minister's inability to keep his word. Below is a Letter to the Editor of the Globe and Mail. It was written by one John Polanyi of Toronto. Now in this case all the Globe said was the person's name and city of origin. However a quick check of the phone book show's there is only one listed J. Polanyi in Toronto. So I suspect that this John Polanyi is the winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Professor of the same subject at the University of Toronto, after all it is not as if Polanyi is a common name in Canada.
In light of the Prime Minister's praiseworthy decision to say no to U.S. missile defence, one should recall W. H. Auden's admonition:
Let us honour if we can The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one.
This country last saw such a stalwart decision when Brian Mulroney, newly elected with the promise that Canada was now "open for business" with the United States, said no to then-president Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative (Star Wars).
History will remember not what we declined in 2005, but what we did, through a five-year $12.8-billion hike in defence budget and a $3.4-billion increase in foreign aid. Peacekeeping and international assistance fit this multicultural land even better today than in Lester Pearson's time.
The earlier Star Wars was a centrepiece of Mr. Reagan's policy, yet it slid into oblivion along with all three of its ambitious missile-defence predecessors: Nike Zeus, Sentinel and Safeguard. The present scheme may have started its decline. For the coming fiscal year, the Pentagon has proposed a $1-billion decrease in its $10-billion-missile-defence budget.
The United States clearly has higher security priorites, as have we. They are much the same for both: to end, world-wide, the tyranny of war and want. A costly and ineffective missile defence will do little to advance these goals.
Well some people do not agree with Polanyi, a Jan Vrana of Montreal wrote a reply.
John Polanyi would make us believe that a costly and ineffective missile defence will do little to end worldwide, the tyranny of war and want.
First Mr. Polanyi failed to acknowledge that, very recently, five out of six tests of the latest ballistic-missile interceptor system were successful in destroying a mock enemy missile. Second, missile defence is a project that is trying to get away from the now outdated and morally repulsive philosophy of mutally assured destruction that kept peace among major powers for several decades.
The tyranny of a conventional war between other than major powers may not be averted with missile defence, but the tyranny of a nuclear attack can be without the need for nuclear retaliation. If that is not a fair game for Mr. Polanyi, it certainly is for me.
I like how Vrana kept referring to Polanyi as Mister Polanyi, when I first read the letter I liked it so much I made sure to do my homework. There is no Vrana listed in the Montreal phone listings, but a Google search reveals that there is a Jan Vrana professor of Civil Engineering at McGill University. So I am going to go out on a limb here and assuming that Professor Vrana does not know his compatriot faculty very well.
Anyway a proper critique is in order here.
John Polanyi would make us believe that a costly and ineffective missile defence will do little to end worldwide, the tyranny of war and want. Point for Polanyi, because at the end of the day, how a BMD system could do anything to end war or want is beyond me (and by "want" I assume here we mean basic human needs, food, water shelter).
First Mr. Polanyi failed to acknowledge that, very recently, five out of six tests of the latest ballistic-missile interceptor system were successful in destroying a mock enemy missile. Was there really a need to acknowledge that this month the Pentagon got lucky? But since we have raised the topic, check out the Union of Concerned Scientists web site. The most recent tests are just further evidence that if you concoct a sufficiently unrealistic test environment you can prove just about anything, even, it turns out, the feasibility of BMD.
Second, missile defence is a project that is trying to get away from the now outdated and morally repulsive philosophy of mutually assured destruction that kept peace among major powers for several decades. Well no actually BMD is not trying to get away from mutually assured destruction, BMD is just another way of ensuring that any first strike against the US must be so overwhelming that it is the only strike ever required. In other words, BMD is not an end to MAD rather it forces along that path with greater determination than ever. This is very much in evidence in the build up of missiles in China. The Chinese recognize that if America is their strategic competitor, the Chinese better have a large arsenal of long range missiles at their disposal - currently 600 and counting.
The tyranny of a conventional war between other than major powers may not be averted with missile defence, but the tyranny of a nuclear attack can be without the need for nuclear retaliation. Anyone idiotic enough to launch a nuclear missile at America is assured of their own destruction so I fail to see how BMD really alters the strategic landscape in America's favour. However; given the Chinese build up of long range missiles, the North Korean withdrawal from the Non Proliferation Treaty, and rumblings from Iran I really must wonder, besides a great source of revenue for a major Republican party donor - Raython, aren't the priorities of the Bush administration slightly misplaced? Would it not make more sense to abandon this painfully expensive program and perhaps replace it with better security at our ports and air fields? Instead of abandoning friends and allies by tossing a long standing treaty to the wind, wouldn't the Bush administration be better off saving those $9 or $10 billion each year and using it towards reducing the monster budget deficit that is rapidly impaling the US economy?
Maybe its just the timing; however, it seems to me that emotional arguments aside, BMD is quite possibly the worst idea backed by the Oval office since Calvin Coolidge decided to take a nap in 1923.