Byline: The Register-Guard

President Bush's call for the United States to deploy a limited missile defense system in 2004 came last week, as the White House continued to build a case for a pre-emptive war against Iraq. The missile shield will have dangerous consequences for the United

Bush intends to install a rudimentary version of the "Star Wars" concept first proposed by President Reagan in 1983. Ten missile interceptors would be placed in Alaska and California, supplemented by a sea-based system. Spending on research and testing of anti-missile systems has long been firmly entrenched in the defense budget; Bush's proposal would boost next year's $8 billion appropriation 18 percent.

From proponents' point of view, reliability has been the biggest obstacle to the development of an effective missile defense system. Just a week before Bush proposed the system's deployment, an anti-missile rocket failed to intercept a dummy warhead. The Pentagon had previously scored successes in four out of five tests, but the technology remains imperfect even under conditions constructed to prove that it can work.

Even with a more impressive test record, however, a missile defense system would not shield the nation from attack. The nations or terrorist organizations that present the greatest risk of attempting to strike the United States don't have intercontinental ballistic missiles. They would attack by other, cheaper means. Eighty million shipping containers, for example, enter U.S. ports each year, and only 2 percent are inspected. Bush would add much more to the nation's security by addressing threats that are within the reach of hostile forces, rather than spending billions to defend against a missile attack that is beyond their capabilities.

If a missile defense system were merely wasteful, it would cause no more harm than other billion-dollar boondoggles. But what Bush proposes would destabilize relations between the United States and other nations with nuclear weapons, and would invite a new arms race.

China offers an example. China has limited its nuclear arsenal to about 100 warheads, a quantity it has concluded is sufficient for defensive purposes. A U.S. missile shield would steeply devalue that arsenal. In a conflict over Taiwan, for instance, China would perceive an erosion in its ability to deter the United States from using nuclear weapons in Taiwan's defense. China's recourse would be to build more or better missiles in hopes of regaining a retaliatory capability.

Other nuclear nations, such as Pakistan and India, would similarly expand their arsenals to counter the possibility that the United States would render their missiles useless by shooting them down shortly after launch. A global rush to enlarge or improve nuclear arsenals would ensue - as would a rush to develop countermeasures that would defeat U.S. interceptors with decoys or other means. The U.S. would, in turn, be forced to constantly upgrade its anti-missile system, and a 21st century round in the nuclear arms race would begin.

Non-nuclear nations also would have cause to be concerned about a U.S. missile defense system. The United States enjoys unchallenged military superiority, but the knowledge that a half-dozen other nations possess nuclear weapons imposes a degree of restraint. That restraint would be weakened, other nations worry, if the United States considered itself to be immune to missile attack. The United States' willingness to wage pre-emptive war against Iraq feeds widespread fears of an increased level of recklessness if the sole superpower believed it had no reason to fear weapons of mass destruction.

A weapons system that is unreliable, destabilizing and provocative is a poor investment of defense dollars. Congress should insist that the Bush administration direct the nation's resources toward defense against more credible threats, such as those that became clear on Sept. 11, 2001, while working to reduce the expansion and proliferation of nuclear missiles worldwide.