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On Saturday, July 14, at 11:09 P.M. the United States launched a missile from a test site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. This projectile intercepted and destroyed a dummy warhead that had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These two locations are 4,800 miles apart. Think about it for a minute. The impact took place 144 miles above the earth. At the moment of impact the two projectiles were traveling at a combined speed of 16,200 miles per hour. This wholly fantastic event staggers the imagination.

I find it hard to understand why this amazingly successful test didn't make headlines, didn't make the cover of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News. It is true that Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who was in charge of this test, played down its importance by saying it was just a step. But what a step! I am reminded of Neil Armstrong's "a small step for man, a giant step for mankind."

We have the right now to hope! To hope that this utterly mind-boggling success will be followed by more of the same.

At Reykjavik in 1986 Ronald Reagan had faith that such an event was going to happen. That was the meaning of SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative; some skeptics in Congress derisively called it Reagan's "Star Wars" plan. Historians today believe that we won the Cold War at Reykjavik when Reagan walked away from the ultimate arms control treaty, an ABM treaty, because he knew that eventually the SDI would become a reality. His faith has been vindicated by this test, and July 14, 2001 should go down in history.

Meanwhile history seems to be repeating itself as Democrats in Congress criticize President Bush for not signing another ABM treaty, for walking away from the opportunity.

Our nuclear arsenal and now our missile defense system, our SDI, our "Star Wars" is what will preserve peace, not another treaty.

Why? Because it is only countries like the United States that have a free press and an open society that will adhere to such a treaty. North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and perhaps even China and Russia would not. Russia kept testing her nuclear weapons in spite of signing the last ABM treaty. The good guys, such as the United States, honor treaties, the bad guys do not.

George W. Bush, for all his inexperience in foreign affairs, understands this. His enemies in Congress do not.

Bush therefore has every reason to take pride in the astounding success of our peace-keeping, missile-defense technology.