Weapons only feed our delusions of superiority

I NOTE a tendency among the critical letters that inevitably follow a James Carroll opinion piece. The critic usually accuses Carroll of wanton ignorance, and extols the unquestionable merits of the military while concluding that life as we know it would screech to a halt should Carroll's ideas ever be implemented.

In following this pattern, both Scott Miller ("Peace at all costs doesn't work") and Lawrence Cooper ("The mind reels at the unintended consequences") seem to suggest in their May 14 letters that those who strive for peace are the ones who make the world dangerous. Yet neither makes any effort to indicate exactly how putting weapons in space would make the world a safer place. Such omissions suggest to me that their arguments likely hinge on the same disastrous thinking that characterizes all the so-called military advancements in history: that building and deploying more deadly forces and weaponry would bring more security.

Of course a peace treaty isn't enough to ensure peace; people must put aside the pitiful groupthink that simultaneously allows for national delusions of superiority and paranoia. The signatories that violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact (which Miller cites) - Japan, Italy, and Germany - did so out of a perverse militarism that is obviously a more likely cause of suffering than James Carroll's "strange worldview."

FRED HOPKINS
Melrose

IN HIS May 12 column "Preventing an arms race in outer space," James Carroll criticized the refusal of the United States to sign a space weapons ban treaty. There are two main reasons why the United States does not intend to sign this treaty.

First, there are already weapons in space. To think otherwise, Carroll must have ignored ballistic missiles that have been traveling through space for two generations. Everything we do, from financial transactions to navigation to military communications, is dependent - and growing more so every day - on space capabilities. These capabilities are threatened by many nations, according to our intelligence agencies, because those nations recognize that our space capabilities offer the United States an overwhelming conventional military superiority. These capabilities can best be defended from space.

Second, a treaty would not protect the United States. The State Department tells us such a treaty would be unenforceable. Ambassador Donald Mahley, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for threat reduction and export controls, stated that "the inherent nature of space systems . . . simply denies effective verification in any negotiation." Consequently, a space weapons ban treaty would only leave our national security space systems vulnerable.

The true lesson of history is that countries that have taken the requisite steps to defend themselves do not get attacked.

JON KYL
US senator
Republican of Arizona
Washington