Wait - there are threats other than terrorism?

Until September 11, 2001, much if not most of the security discussion about U.S. foreign policy involved the National Missile Defense program. It's been largely out of the spotlight during the past five years, but work on it continues, as today's successful test indicates.

The program, also called Star Wars, is supposed to provide a virtual shield over U.S. airspace, whereby any incoming missile could be tracked and shot down. Previous tests, which cost tens of millions of dollars, had shown the system unable to hit a missile. Another source of consternation was the failure of NMD satellites to notice the launch of seven North Korean missiles on July 5 of this year.

And NMD isn't cheap. The government has spent about $92 billion on it since 1983, and the administration expects to spend nearly $60 billion more by 2011.

Yet another issue - and one that is perhaps most pertinent to this blog - is whether or not our European allies will be involved in the NMD project. And there there's the security dilemma implication. Some questions raised include:

Should the UK be under the shield? (That's the plan.) What about all of Europe? (Sites in Eastern Europe have been considered.) What about South Korean and Japan?

Will this just lead to an arms race - will China want a shield of its own? Could Russia afford one? One can understand that these powers would not want to live in a world where another major nuclear power has a "shield" that makes it invincible.

Nuclear stability theories, including MAD, would be obsolete or have to be re-evaluated. Maybe this is good; maybe this is bad.

With the amount of money we're spending on the program, perhaps it's time for more discussion.