Yes indeed! There really is no business like war business. Take the last failure of the National Missile Defense System. It missed again with another $100 million down the drain. However, failures don't matter, the money gravy train just keeps coming. President Clinton's fiscal year 2001 budget has another $1.9 billion for ``star wars'' with total funding for FY2001-2005 set at $10.4 billion.

Russia has emphatically stated that if the U.S. proceeds with this anti-missile system, and consequently alters the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, it will respond by deploying more missiles and warheads. Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian said that such a system ``will trigger a new arms race.''

Many of our European allies are also against this project. President Jacques Chirac of France recently attacked the U.S. plans to construct an anti-missile system, saying: ``We must avoid any questioning of the ABM Treaty that could lead to a disruption of the strategic equilibrium and a new nuclear arms race.''

This scaled-down version of the original ``stars wars'' scheme, that President Reagan was conned into approving back in the 1980s, is not applicable to any threat from the nuclear arsenals of Russia or China. It is designed for the so-called ``rogue states'' like North Korea and Iran.

But as TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson states: ``The bad guys are more likely to use a Piper Cub to deliver a weapon of mass destruction than a long-range missile, which always has a return address. If they did use a missile they're more likely to fire it at short range from a cargo ship so nearby that this system couldn't stop it.''

But rational analysis doesn't matter. It's money that propels the ``star wars'' anti-missile program and the entire arms race. Major lobbying comes from the armament industry. The politicians who feed off campaign funds from this industry and the military contracts they secure for their districts facilitate this lobbying. The Pentagon completes this macabre equation with its insatiable appetite for new weapons, whether needed or not.

Cold War I was so profitable that the stage is being set for Cold War II. Military spending for FY2001 is increased to $291.1 billion. This includes $60 billion for new weapons. Budget Authority over the entire Future Years Defense Plan, which covers Fiscal Years 2001-2005, is nearly $1.6 trillion. This will be the largest increase since the Reagan-era military buildup in the 1980s.

It can't go on! The line has to be drawn. We barely made it though Cold War I. We won't survive Cold War II. It has been 10 years since the end of Cold War I, yet 30,000 nuclear weapons remain stockpiled. Moreover, Russia has about 3,000 and the U.S. about 2,500 nuclear warheads on ``hair-trigger'' alert, ready to fire in a few minutes notice. It's utter madness!

The danger of miscalculation or an accidental missile launch is growing. It's reported that Russia's early warning system is now unable to detect U.S. missile launches for at least seven hours a day. Former Ambassador James Goodbye says, ``I think the chances (of a nuclear mistake) are rising. . . . The effects of a glitch would be cataclysmic.''

Rather than increasing military spending and funding a nuclear missile defense system, the immediate focus should be on taking the nuclear weapons in every nuclear state off alert status. This would obviate the chance of accidental nuclear war. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has a resolution (H.CON.RES.177) in Congress with 84 co-sponsors that call for this action.

At the dawn of this millennium, it's imperative that we get our priorities in order. While there's no business like war business, we can't go on with the show.

Douglas Mattern, a Silicon Valley engineer, is president of the Association of World Citizens (www.worldcitizens.org), an international peace organization with branches in 50 countries. His e-mail address is worldcit@best.com.

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© 2000 Mercury Center