Missile defense programs still received $3 to $4 billion per year in R&D funding, but the political momentum toward deploying defenses against long-range missiles-a move that would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, one of the cornerstones of the existing nuclear arms control regime-appeared to have been broken.Д«ut the prospects for moving forward on attempts to construct a defense against long-range missiles increased in 1994 when the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and introduced their вЂњContract with America.вЂќ The ten-point platform included a plank that stated it should be U.S. In its latest incarnation-National Missile Defense (NMD)-the program has been scaled back from ReaganвЂ™s vision of a multitiered defense that could fend off thousands of Soviet nuclear delivery vehicles to the seemingly more realistic goal of defending all 50 states from an accidental missile launch from Russia or China, or from attack by a so-called вЂњrogue stateвЂќ like Iraq or North Korea.Дuring its first term the Clinton administration shifted Star Wars research funding toward Theater Missile Defense (TMD) programs designed to deal with regional threats. But spurred on by the efforts of a coalition of Star Wars вЂњtrue believersвЂќ and self-interested weapons contractors, missile defense programs have undergone a miraculous political revival in the 1990s. Enthusiasm for deploying a full-scale shield against incoming ballistic missiles waned by the late 1980s in the face of widespread technical failures, cost issues, and the initiation of the first significant reductions of U.S. has spent more than $60 billion attempting to develop various approaches to ballistic missile defense.

Since March 1983, when President Reagan first introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative-Star Wars-as a way to render nuclear weapons вЂњimpotent and obsolete,вЂќ the U.S. More than $60 billion spent on missile defense projects since 1983 has produced precious little beyond cost overruns and technical failures.The administrationвЂ™s proposal for a revision in the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty of 1972 has become the major sticking point in U.S.-Russian talks about implementing deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals.President Clinton is scheduled to make a decision within the next six months on whether to take the first steps toward deploying a National Missile Defense (NMD) system.

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