Enthusiasm for deploying a full-scale shield against incoming ballistic missiles waned by the late 1980s in the face of widespread technical failures, cost issues, and the initiation of the first significant reductions of U.S. has spent more than $60 billion attempting to develop various approaches to ballistic missile defense. Since March 1983, when President Reagan first introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative-Star Wars-as a way to render nuclear weapons вЂњimpotent and obsolete,вЂќ the U.S. More than $60 billion spent on missile defense projects since 1983 has produced precious little beyond cost overruns and technical failures.

The administrationвЂ™s proposal for a revision in the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty of 1972 has become the major sticking point in U.S.-Russian talks about implementing deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals.President Clinton is scheduled to make a decision within the next six months on whether to take the first steps toward deploying a National Missile Defense (NMD) system.

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