Defense Shield Long In Coming

In September 1944, German forces launched the first-ever successful missile attack against London.

In July of the following year, a delegation of U.S. officers traveled to Europe to investigate. Their conclusion: The United States needed to develop anti-ballistic missile defenses.

Within a year, the missile age had begun and so had the United States’ quest to build a shield. Neither has stopped since. Although ever-present, this issue has at times risen to the surface of public consciousness and debate.

In the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s notorious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or “Star Wars”) program marked the highest-profile phase of the ongoing push toward a missile shield.

Notorious as in being a contributing factor in the collapse of the Evil Empire because they went bankrupt trying to compete.

Research, development and testing of new technologies, including space-based chemical weapons and ground-based laser weapons, continued through the 1980s with mixed results.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, criticism of the need for such a program mounted. In his 1991 State of the Union address, President George H. W. Bush announced that SDI’s mission would change from defense against a large-scale attack to “protection against limited ballistic missile strikes — whatever their source.”

Don't tell the neocoMs, but when was the last time you read this?

By the late 1990s, U.S. President Bill Clinton had authorized the development of a missile-defense shield; the decision was influenced by North Korean missile tests in 1998. The United States continued pouring billions of dollars into missile defense development and testing.

Read it all, you'll appreciate the clarity.