IP: From whats new -- MISSILE DEFENSE: WOULD A LEAKY SYSTEM MAKE US ANY SAFER?

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Anyone for a poll of IPers on the probability of Hans Mark being right. I will summerize answers and destroy the 
message as soon as I score them. djf

At the APS Centennial Meeting in Atlanta on Monday, Hans Mark, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering at the 
Pentagon, declared that a system to protect the continental United States against missile attack is feasible and said 
it would be deployed by 2010. This is the strongest statement in support of NMD by a senior member of the Clinton 
Administration. The two physicists in Congress, Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Rush Holt (D-NJ), who were on the same panel, 
disagree with Mark. Last week they voted against the National Missile Defense bill that passed overwhelmingly. (WN 19 
Mar 99). Holt said that "provocative yet permeable defenses are destabilizing and lead to reduced security." Could 
missiles be intercepted? "Yes," Richard Garwin explained in a session on arms control, "if the launching country 
cooperated."