a large-scale nuclear attack. A United States “national missile defense deployment would prod Russia into keeping a larger number of its strategic weapons on hair-trigger alert, thus perpetuating the dangerous nuclear standoff and risk of accidental nuclear war” (The Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Arms 2). Currently the United States has been unable to produce an accurately working national missile defense. It is these adaptations caused by the proposal of a national missile defense that would bring back the nuclear arms race, on an even larger scale then previously during the Cold War. Many rogue nations now have the ability to launch a small-scale nuclear attack on their neighboring enemies. While a national missile defense system would allow for the ability to defend from such an attack, this would cause smaller rogue nations to revert back to their former tactics of terrorist assaults. This would increase the already current threat of having a small portable nuclear device smuggled into the United States. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld says, “…we are more vulnerable now to the suitcase bomb” (2). It is this statement that shows that the United States should be pursuing alternative means to eliminate the threats of an untraditional nuclear attack other then the possibility of a small-scale nuclear missile attack. Security protocols for nuclear material in other countries have become a growing concern for the United States, with nuclear arsenal surplus making its way to the black market. The United States should be negotiating with our allies as well as our enemies to reach an agreement of nuclear arms reduction that would decrease the possibility of a terrorist group obtaining the materials necessary to construct and detonate an unconventional nuclear device.Any emplacement of a national missile defense system violates a 1972 anti ballistic missile treaty, banning all development of national missi...
