What is Trump’s Golden Dome?

Description:

And Are We Paying for Ineffective Missile Defense and a Spiraling Nuclear Arms Race? Missile Defense, as the term implies, is defending against enemy missiles carrying an explosive payload. The origin of these anti-missile systems dates back to the Cold War space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, an era when intercontinental ballistic missiles could be deployed in space to launch satellites to orbit or travel thousands of miles carrying nuclear weapons. Missile defense systems were deployed by both superpowers in the 1960s, but proved to be technically infeasible and prohibitively expensive. They were ultimately abandoned. Feasibility and cost notwithstanding, the U.S. military and weapons contractors succeeded in pursuing these systems during the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. Now, Donald Trump has launched the ambitious Golden Dome project, yet another missile defense program based on technologies and space-based interceptors proven to be unworkable. In this webinar, we will hear three experts discuss the technical and policy aspects of Golden Dome. Ted Postol, professor emeritus at MIT, is an internationally known analyst and long-time critic of the missile defense program. He has held positions at the Argonne National Laboratory, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and the Pentagon, where he functioned as scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations and technical and policy advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At Stanford, he helped build a weapons technology training program for development and arms control policy. His awards include the 1995 Hilliard Roderick Prize in Science, Arms Control, and International Security from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) which lauded him as “by-far the strongest, technically-trained, independent arms control analyst of his generation” and the mentor of “a whole generation of independent arms control policy analysts.” He has been awarded for whistle-blowing about governmental false claims about missile defenses like the Patriot system in the 1991 Gulf War. He is a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of The Committee for the Republic, and a former editor of the journal International Security. Daryl Kimball is the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA), Washington, DC, where since 2001 he has led the organization’s advocacy campaigns on major issues including cancellation of new nuclear weapons programs, the 2010 New START agreement, the 2015 P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and strengthening the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. He is publisher of the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, a frequent expert source for reporters and policymakers, and has written and spoken extensively about all matters related to nuclear arms control. Previously, he was the executive director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, and the Director of Security Programs for Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). There, he helped to expose and accelerate the cleanup of a toxic, Cold War-era nuclear weapons production site in his hometown of Oxford, Ohio, led the advocacy for the 1992 nuclear test moratorium in Congress and for the U.N.’s endorsement of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Subrata Ghoshroy, a former Senior Defense Analyst for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), was the lead Technical Evaluator for its investigation into allegations of fraud in the missile defense program. When the GAO tried to cover up his discovery that contractors were lying about a $100-million test, he blew the whistle and quit the GAO shortly afterwards. He then joined MIT as a Research Affiliate with the Program in Science, Technology, and Society. Linda Pentz Gunter, moderator, is the curator and editor of Beyond Nuclear International and the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear. Prior to her work in anti-nuclear advocacy, she was a journalist for 20 years in print and broadcast, working for USA Network, Reuters, The Times (UK) and other US and international outlets.