In fact, the need for the assured ability to provide 24-hour-a-day, secure, two-way and world-wide communications offered only by MILSTAR is more obvious now than ever.
The Congress must not permit the many billions of dollars already invested in MILSTAR to be wasted or deny the U.S. military the vital C3 capabilities this system alone offers.
Most importantly, it recognized as Congress has consistently done until this year the vital need for the MILSTAR program as an indispensable element of U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities.
Of the latter, the Center believes two are so egregious as to demand presidential rejection of this bill: the effective termination of the MILSTAR communications program and the wholly inadequate funding and legislative hamstringing of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
Evidence provided by the Iraqi incursion that this country may still face formidable adversaries far from home, equipped with modern military capabilities, should put to rest arguments that such conflicts are things of the past and that sophisticated, jam-resistant C3 systems like MILSTAR are no longer necessary.