I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Last year, when Congress rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, you'd have thought they voted down mom, apple pie and the flag. But their sense of History was working just fine.
A lot of liberals were jittery in the early '80s when Ronald Reagan's finger was on the nuclear button. But Reagan, more than any modern statesman, saw mutually assured destruction for what it was: an insane policy developed by intellectuals so immersed in the jargon of arms control they'd lost touch with reality.
Reagan's solution was a Missile Defense System, which leftists tried to discredit. But in the messy post-cold war world, Reagan's idea makes even more sense.
Plenty of Russian nukes can't be accounted for. Rogue states are testing bomb and delivery systems. China has nuclear missiles capable of reaching the U.S. the outdated Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has no provision for verification. The 1972 ABM treaty is worthless. A Missile Defense System, which we can build now, can fulfill Reagan's promise of making nuclear weapons obsolete.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, your tax dollars not at work.