| The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of President G. W. Bush and his administration's advocacy of the development and deployment of missile defenses. Toward this end, three broad critical questions must be answered; first, what are Bush's arguments? What strategies does he employ to justify missile defense? The answer to this first question is descriptive in nature, and the first primary goal of this study is to root out and identify Bush's arguments through textual analysis.; The second critical question is more specific, and indeed is at the heart of this project: how has President Bush been able to sustain significant levels of public and Congressional support for ballistic missile defenses, especially in a new geo-strategic environment where it seems less relevant to American security? To address this admittedly broad question, this study will begin to answer four specific subquestions about Bush's rhetoric. First, how did Bush persuade the Congress to support missile defense? Second, what specific arguments does Bush make about the level of missile threat and the technologies available to deal with those threats? Each President who has taken a position on missile defense is thus inherently inclined to make arguments about the level of threat from ICBMs, and also about the technology that will be used to counter those threats. Third, this study seeks to determine what role was played by the Bush administration; an often overlooked part of the struggle over BMD is the critical role played by the Secretary of Defense and other key spokespersons for missile defense. Finally, how did Bush market missile defense to the Russians? Like past Presidents who dealt with the Soviet Union on this issue, the question of the Russian response to American BMD plans was also of critical importance. |
