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In Andrew Jackson’s farewell address to the nation, he stated, “We shall more certainly preserve peace when it is well understood that we are prepared for war,” (Political Quotations #3719). The United States has always throughout history been a major military power from the use of abnormal tactics during the Revolutionary War (1776) to the use of its technology and advanced weapons in the Persian Gulf War (1991). After World War II and the Cold War Era, the United States has been able to defend its citizens from any form of a military attack from the sea, air, and the ground on the eastern and western seaboards. With the development of the intercontinental ballistic missiles, the United States was now unable to protect the citizens from this new form of military attack a missile with a chemical or nuclear warhead. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan called upon the men and women who developed the new form of the attack, used to force Japan into signing a peace treaty, to develop a strategic defense initiative also known as “Star Wars,” which proposed to defend the continental United States from a missile attack by intercepting it before reaching its intended target. Today seventeen years after President Ronald Reagan’s speech, the United States is still unable to intercept and destroy any incoming missiles. With the slit and financial problems of the former Soviet Union States the United States now has to worry about the Russian government selling their arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons to other nations around the world. In order to preserve its national security from ballistic missiles, the United States should proceed with its plans for the National Missile Defense System to protect its citizens from these attacks.

The Concept of a National Missile Defense System began with President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 speech. During his speech, he called for an impenetrable shield that would protect the entire...