TALKING POINTS ON NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE AND THE ABM TREATY

(Updated; 5/22/96)

The Administration's ballistic missile defense program starts with a sober and clear-eyed look at the missile threat. It responds with a balanced program that emphasizes the current threat and stays well ahead of future threats, without wasting taxpayers' dollars on unnecessary systems or undermining our gains in reducing the nuclear threat through arms control.

The Administration is committed to developing by the year 2000 an NMD system that could be deployed as soon as 2003 -- well ahead of when we expect to see a long-range threat to the United States.
By delaying a deployment decision until required by an emerging threat, we avoid committing to a specific technology and thus ensure deployment of the best possible NMD system if and when the threat emerges.
We also avoid premature consideration of whether amendments to the ABM Treaty are needed, thereby ensuring that the massive reductions in nuclear forces mandated by START T and START II -- resulting in a reduction by 14,000 in the number of deployed U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads -- remain on track.

The Administration's first priority has been to provide effective theater missile defenses (TMD) against short-range missile threats we face today in the Middle East and Asia.
Making TMD our top priority puts the U.S. in the best position to defeat existing threats to U.S. forces, friends and allies.
Since 1993, the Administration has requested almost $6 billion for research, development arid procurement of effective TMDs, such as the Patriot, PAC-3 and Navy "Lower Tier," designed to shoot down short-range missiles armed with conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
Patriot is in use now and the PAC-3 and Navy Lower Tier will be fielded in 1998.
Top U.S. government scientists agree that it would take at least a decade before a space-based laser weapons system could be tested; at present, the U.S. lacks space boosters large enough to lift such a system into orbit. Yet the bill suggests full-deployment by 2003 -- but is silent on how much this would cost or where we would get the money.