As Frances Fitzgerald writes in Way Out There in the Blue, her history of what was then known as the Strategic Defense Initiative: “Every time the program seemed ready to expire, or collapse of its own weight, something would happen to bring it to life again.” The latest “something” keeping the program alive is the administration of President George W.
At worst, they could spark a new, multisided nuclear arms race that would increase the risks of nuclear war.īut Reagan’s dream of a shield against nuclear weapons lives on. In September 2000 he said, “I simply cannot conclude with the information I have today that we have enough confidence in the technology, and the operational effectiveness of the entire NMD system, to move forward to deployment.” Clinton added that even if missile defenses could be made to work, they would at best add a modest margin of protection from nuclear weapons. Given a critical test failure in July 2000 and a growing chorus of criticisms, President Clinton found himself in a safe position to delay deployment of the proposed NMD system before leaving office.
policy to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system “as soon as technologically feasible.” President Clinton’s commitment to missile defense was tempered by his pledge to base a deployment decision on four criteria: the overall costs of the program, the technical feasibility, an assessment of the ballistic missile threat facing the U.S., and the impact it would have on arms control and arms reduction efforts.Īlthough the NMD system was restructured to focus on the seemingly more realistic goal of defending all 50 states from an accidental missile launch by Russia or China or from the attack of a rogue nation such as Iran, Iraq, or North Korea, technological difficulties still abound. Under the Clinton administration, it became U.S. has spent more than $70 billion since that time on various missile defense programs without producing a single workable device. On March 23, 1983, Ronald Reagan surprised the nation and the world by announcing an ambitious research program designed to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Reagan acknowledged that this “formidable technical task…may not be accomplished before the end of this century.” He was right: the U.S.
#WILL MARTIN STAR WARS REVISITED FULL#
Until then, the Force will be with you, always. : But we will be back at some point, if for nothing else, thanks to our completionist tendencies. : Thanks for understanding, and we’ll see you again soon. But that’s a big “if,” so I don’t want to promise anything. If I feel up to it, I may actually push ahead and finish Shadows of the Empire by myself, although a) it’ll be on a biweekly schedule at most, and b) without Will’s moderating influence, you’ll see a lot more angry screeching, believe you me. In the meantime, you can find us at Twitter as and and if you follow the blog’s account at we will be posting announcements there about a possible restart. So: Force Visions is officially on hiatus until the first week of June 2021, at which point we’ll regroup and re-evaluate. If the book we currently had on tap wasn’t one we have literally been trying to scratch our way out of at this point, we still might have persevered, but… It’s been similar for Will, who also has had to deal with relocation several times over since the pandemic started. Added skills and all, yes, good, but also added a lot of other things to keep track of. Speaking just for myself, somewhere between that date above and now, I, uh, have established a home recording studio, effectively, out of necessity. We both have jobs that are potentially high stress and our other main hobbies can potentially be very demanding. This… isn’t your regularly scheduled Force Visions post of the week.įor a number of months now, both Will and I have been under higher pressure than usual (and yes, I am aware that there is still a global catastrophe going on and that I still haven’t touched another human being since March 13, 2020, wonder how I know the date so precisely, huh).
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