Today's edition of USA Today contains a letter from me on the debate over building a National Missile Defense system.

The letter I sent was:


The satellite and radar systems which could detect a nuclear missile attack and launch an interceptor, would also pinpoint the aggressor nation. Any government able to build an intercontinental ballistic missile and perverse enough to attack the US, would also be smart enough to deliver a much larger and dirtier nuclear device in a boat or submarine which would be obliterated by the explosion, leaving no clue to the perpetrator. The same method could be used by a terrorist group which could never build a missile.

Rather than wasting more billions on a defense against a missile attack that will never come, we should work to reduce our actual vulnerabilities.


The printed letter differed slightly from this.

Peter Robinson