Strategic Defense Initiative: Folly Or Future?

by P. Edward Haley, Jack Merritt, Martin C Needler

Overview

Intended for use as a text in courses on national security, arms control, and peace studies, this collection of statements by world leaders and eminent scholars offers an accurate and comprehensive guide through the maze of claims and criticisms about "Star Wars," the sensationally controversial effort of the Reagan administration to reorient U.S. nuclear strategy to strategic defense. The contents include a thorough introduction by the editors and individual chapters outlining the strategic defense initiative as originally conceived and subsequently modified by the Reagan administration; the arguments for and against the plan's strategic and technical feasibility; and assessments of the harmful and constructive effects of strategic defense on U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-allied relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367304300
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/31/2021
Pages:	193
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

"P. Edward Haley is director of the Keck Center for International Strategic Studies and chairman of the International Relations Committee, Claremont McKenna College. He has worked on the staffs of members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and was an international affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. Jack Merritt is professor emeritus of physics, Claremont McKenna College. Prior to coming to Claremont, he served as an administrative officer at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science Policy Organization of the Bureau of Budget."

Table of Contents

Preface — Introduction: Strategic Defense, Nuclear Deterrence, and Arms Control — The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative — Address to the Nation on the Strategic Defense Initiative — Ballistic Missile Defenses and U.S. National Security — On the Road to a More Stable Peace — Statement to Congress — Strategic Feasibility — BMD and Strategic Instability — The President's Choice: Star Wars or Arms Control — The Case for Strategic Defense: An Option for a World Disarmed — A Case for Strategic Defense — Technical Feasibility — The SDI: A Technical Appraisal — Is SDI Technically Feasible? — The Strategic Defense Initiative: Defensive Technologies Study — SDI: The Last, Best Hope — SDI and U.S.-Soviet Relations — Nuclear Disarmament by the Year 2000 — The Strategic Defense Initiative and the Soviet Union — Report to Congress After Geneva Summit — The Nuclear and Space Arms Talks: Where We Are After the Summit — SDI and U.S.-Allied Relations — Strategic Defense and the Western Alliance — Defence and Security in the Nuclear Age — Statement to the Bundestag — Press Conference