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President Reagan termed the Soviet Union the "evil empire" and announced the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a satellite-based defense system that would
destroy incoming missiles and warheads in space. He called upon the scientific
community "to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and
obsolete." This was a dramatic change in U.S. nuclear policy because defense
against ballistic missiles had not been part of U.S. defense programs for ten
years. (A ballistic missile is shot into space and then reenters the atmosphere
over its target.)
SDI was to destroy incoming Soviet missiles by intercepting and destroying them
with either laser beams or particle beams shot from satellites or from the
ground. Dubbed Star Wars by the press, SDI quickly became controversial. SDI
supporters argued that this near-perfect defense would make the United States
safer and real arms control possible. Supporters believed that once the Soviets
realized their nuclear weapons were obsolete, they'd be more willing to give
them up.
Opponents argued that the complex technology involved was far from foolproof
and couldn't be tested before it was used. If it did work, critics contended,
SDI would only protect the United States from ballistic missiles, not from
bombers or low-flying cruise missiles. Furthermore, they believed SDI would
make arms control less likely. The Soviets would respond by building more
weapons to overwhelm SDI.
Lastly, SDI critics said the initiative violated the 1972 ABM (anti-ballistic
missile) Treaty with the Soviet Union. In the treaty--part of the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks I agreement--the United States and Soviet Union had
agreed not to build a nationwide anti-ballistic missile system. In 1985,
President Reagan's legal experts claimed to have found a loophole in the treaty
which allowed unrestricted testing of the components of a ballistic missile
defense system. This claim became an issue both within the United States and
between the United States and Soviet Union.
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