The Strategic Defense Initiative

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the mythical proportions of the strategic defense initiative (SDI). It discusses the promises of technology and absolute security and how the SDI failed on both counts. The paper analyzes why the mythical promise of the SDI allowed the U.S. to believe that threats to its own security could be surmounted and controlled and then describes the problems with this promise.

From the Paper:

"In other words, Reagan's dream of an absolutely defended nation endures because the value of the SDI and its successors has almost nothing to do with their ability to deliver on their respective promises of security. It is enough that they can lay claim to those promises, that they can presume to provide the myth of security via technology. Without understanding the feasibility of such a system or the science (or lack thereof) behind it, the U.S. has allowed the SDI to persist for more than twenty years because it fulfills a need in the hearts of the people and its leaders. It allows us to believe that sometime soon, maybe this year or the next, we will be able to create a foolproof technological wonder that will absolutely protect the nation and its citizens from threat of attack or danger of death or destruction. As threats to the United States and its interests seem to crop up on a daily basis, it is no wonder that many in the government, military, and in the nation have embraced tightly the vision of an absolutely protected nation safeguarded under a missile shield."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bobier, Paul. "Star Wars Talks." Briarpatch Nov. 2004: 27-28.
• Cimbala, Stephen J. "The Strategic Defense Initiative: Political Risks." Air University Review Nov.-Dec. 1985. 7 Feb. 2007 <http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1985/nov-dec/cimbala.html>.
• "Dream of Missile Defense, The." The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Sept./Oct. 1995: 49-50.
• Gaffney, Frank J. Jr. "A Thousand Cuts Distracts Defense of U.S." Insight 1-8 Oct. 2001: 44-45.
• Hadley, Stephen J. "A Call to Deploy." The Washington Quarterly 23.3 (Summer 2000): 95-108.

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