Gambling Man
by Lionel Barber · 3 Oct 2024 · 424pp · 123,730 words
says, is Ronald Reagan and his unshakeable belief in the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system. At the height of the Cold War, Reagan thought his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) could force the Soviets to the negotiating table and eventually rid the world of nuclear weapons. Experts told Reagan the space-based missile shield
Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military
by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Avis Lang · 10 Sep 2018 · 745pp · 207,187 words
past director of the Air Force Space Command; a commander of the 50th Space Wing of the Air Force Space Command; an official with the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, home of “Star Wars” missile defense; and director of the 1994 Clementine lunar probe, a collaboration between NASA and the Department of Defense. This
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, the Air Force’s Rome Air Development Center in New York, MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, the Visibility Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Additional expertise came from the top-secret national-security science advisory group called the Jasons. Formed in 1960 and comprising MacArthur geniuses, Nobel laureates, and
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-to-air missiles and ground-launched drones. The use of lasers in airborne antimissile defense held promise. Ronald Reagan’s 1983 public announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative—Star Wars—promised yet more.115 With declassification, the divergent goals and tasks of the warfighters and the space scientists came into focus. British-born
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1969. Initial funding for Arecibo traces to an anti-ballistic-missile program, Project Defender, supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency. A precursor to the Strategic Defense Initiative, Project Defender addressed US worries that decoys would successfully prevent defensive action against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Arecibo radio telescope held hope that the radar
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satellites, airplanes or land-based installations to shoot down missiles in the air.”30 The administration’s vision of missile defense was formally called the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, but given the release of the third film in the Star Wars trilogy two months after Reagan’s speech, a colloquial rename was
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-Ballistic Missile Treaty but picking up again within a few years. During the decade that followed Reagan’s announcement, Congress put $30 billion into the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. In 1993, describing how well that money was spent, the organization’s director, General James A. Abrahamson, said it had yielded “major hardware assembly
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“leading” US universities, including almost 60 percent of all faculty in America’s “top twenty” physics departments, sign a pledge to reject funding from the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization—that’s when it becomes hard to tout the achievements of SDI unless you’re the guy in charge. Even some scientists who were
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by the late 1990s.36 In November 1987, three weeks before a Reagan–Gorbachev summit, a group called Spacewatch organized a debate titled “Is the Strategic Defense Initiative in the National Interest,” in which Sagan and Garwin spoke against the emergent, non-Reaganesque version of SDI, while General Abrahamson and Richard Perle, then
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full-scale military-technical offensive planned simultaneously to overcome Moscow militarily and ruin the USSR financially.”38 Within a few months after 9/11, the Strategic Defense Initiative became the Missile Defense Agency and was exempted from the Pentagon’s standard procurement and oversight procedures. February 2010 marked a modest milestone: the first
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by Israel, with the occasional addition of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, or Haiti.151 Also starting in 1981—and accelerated by US disinformation regarding the Strategic Defense Initiative, coupled with genuine as well as artificially inflated Soviet alarm at SDI and the space shuttle—the Soviet Union asked the UN General Assembly to
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and Mikhail Gorbachev met at a nuclear disarmament summit in Iceland, which might have succeeded but for the unshakable US commitment to Star Wars, the Strategic Defense Initiative. In fact, unbeknownst to Gorbachev at the time of the summit, the Soviet Union’s own offensive versions of Star Wars were well under way
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-time-it-may-be-real. Freedberg’s 2015 piece quotes Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, who “lived through Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and the Airborne Laser—but this time, he thinks, lasers really are becoming reality.” In the following paragraph, however, the author says that’s “not
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for Public Policy, Sept. 1993, 8, 2, 5, www.nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/What-for-30B_.pdf (accessed Apr. 22, 2017). 35.“Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Budget Slashed, Funds Earmarked,” CQ Almanac 1990, 46th ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1991), 619–93, library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal90-1111525 (accessed July
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Penetrating Look into the Lives of the Young Scientists Behind Our Space Age Weaponry (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985). 37.“SDI Debate: Is the Strategic Defense Initiative in the National Interest,” Nov. 18, 1987, C-SPAN, Program 532-1, www.c-span.org/video/?532-1/sdi-debate (accessed Apr. 22, 2017
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. Of the name Mir, Sheehan writes that it was intended to create a contrast to “the American effort to militarise and ‘weaponise’ space through the Strategic Defense Initiative.” He further argues that “SDI needed to be challenged symbolically in this way because Gorbachev was aware that a Soviet effort simply to match the
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of the US Wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and Homeland Security.” Watson Institute, Brown University, Sept. 2016. C-SPAN. “SDI Debate: Is the Strategic Defense Initiative in the National Interest.” Program 532-1. Nov. 18, 1987. Cunliffe, Barry. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. New York: Walker, 2002. Curtis, Heber
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, 508–9n Operation Iraqi Freedom, 16, 19, 24 reasons for Iraq War, 336, 515n on space cooperation with China, 376 space policy, 503–4n and Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 12 Butler, Samuel, 108 Butrica, Andrew, 185 Cabral, Pedro Álvares, 81, 431n californium-254, 402 Cameron, Julia Margaret, 142 camouflage, 125, 172–74
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coherence, 242 Cold War aerospace industry consolidation after, 11, 411n buildup of US military strength, 267 end of, 358, 368 particle physics benefit from, 29 Strategic Defense Initiative and, 250, 252 Collier’s magazine series on space, 366, 523–24n collision cross-section, 401–2 Colorado Springs, Colorado, 16, 17 Columbia University’s
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compared to astrophysics spending, 402–3, 533nn global military spending, 403, 404, 533n military space budget, 321, 510n after September 11 attack, 12–13, 412n Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 12, 250, 411n Milky Way Andromeda galaxy collision predicted, 234 radio waves from center of, 178–79 rapid movement of central stars, 344
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Minoans, 68, 69 mirrors in reflecting telescopes, 133 Mir space station (USSR), 359–60, 362, 522n Missile Defense Agency, 12, 252 missile defense technology, see Strategic Defense Initiative Moltz, James Clay, 261, 280, 359 Moluccas (Spice Islands), 88 Molyneux, William, 108 Montgomery, Bernard, 305 Moon albedo, 196 first daguerreotypes of, 143, 144, 456n
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, 53 Reagan, Ronald astrology and, 53 Hollywood actor, 250 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, 307 International Space Station and, 365, 367 “morning again in America,” 8 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 12, 156, 248–48–9, 411n summit with Gorbachev, 251, 307, 359 Superconducting Super Collider (SSD), 29 Reber, Grote, 179, 180 reflection control
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., 416n Stone, I. F., 298–99 stone “passage tombs” of County Meath, Ireland, 41–42 Strachey, R., 98 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 304, 305, 481n Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) and aerospace industry campaign contributions, 12, 411–12n announced by Ronald Reagan, 12, 156, 248–49, 258, 411n Brilliant Pebbles, 250, 271 end
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defense, 156, 253 opposition to, 250–52 Project Excalibur, 246, 252 research and development, 250 spending on, 12, 250, 411n technical challenges, 249–50, 482n Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, 26, 250, 251 Strategic Space Symposium, 414n Strong, Ian, 217 Suhail (Canopus), 67, 73–74, 434n Sulbār (Achernar), 74 Sumerians, 40, 69 sundials, 40
Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War
by Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff · 8 Jul 2024 · 272pp · 103,638 words
programs launched over the decades that followed. The most ambitious came to be known as “Star Wars.” Announced in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, the Strategic Defense Initiative was a program to put lasers and particle-beam weapons into a fleet of orbiting killer satellites that would blast incoming missiles out of the
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defenses, 77 “Brilliant Pebbles,” 78 Datahub AI system, 80, 81, 86, 98 “left-of-launch” solution, 78, 79, 91 Nike air defense system, 77, 79 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 77–78 Banazadeh, Payam, ix, 82, 83, 84, 151 Butow and, 82, 84, 85–86 Capella Space and, 81, 82, 85, 199 DoD
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt · 3 Sep 2007 · 801pp · 229,742 words
Reagan years. Joint military exercises began in 1984, and in 1986 Israel became one of three foreign countries invited to participate in the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “Star Wars”). Finally, in 1988, a new memorandum of agreement reaffirmed the “close partnership between Israel and the United States” and designated Israel a
The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire
by Wikileaks · 24 Aug 2015 · 708pp · 176,708 words
is required on why missile defense both rattles Russia and is considered destabilizing to the nuclear-weapons balance. In 1983 President Ronald Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative, presciently ridiculed as “Star Wars” at the time because it sounded like as much of a fantasy as it does to this day. Patriot missiles
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of forces agreements 159 Steele, James 105, 354–5, 363 Steele, Michael D. 367 Steinberg, James 267, 408, 420–1 Stephens, D. Kathleen 420–2 Strategic Defense Initiative 223–4 Streltsov, Mikhail 232, 234 Sudan 458, 460 Suez Crisis 43 Suleiman, Omar 37 Sullivan, Leon 476–7 Sullivan, Mark 501–2 Súmate 518
Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict
by Max Brooks, John Amble, M. L. Cavanaugh and Jaym Gates · 14 May 2018 · 278pp · 84,002 words
Command in Colorado, an organization the movies touched in 1983 when Senator Ted Kennedy coined the immortal “Star Wars” nickname for the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative.9 I couldn’t help but reflect on just how thin the wall between film fiction and defense reality really is—Star Wars is just
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: American Publishing; New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1897). 9. On March 23, 1983, the Washington Post quoted Senator Edward Kennedy, who described the president’s Strategic Defense Initiative proposal as “reckless Star Wars schemes.” Lou Cannon, “President Seeks Futuristic Defense against Missiles,” Washington Post, March 24, 1983. Introduction Max Brooks How do you
Stealth
by Peter Westwick · 22 Nov 2019 · 474pp · 87,687 words
campaign to frighten the Soviets (or that the technology itself was part of a sting operation, as some partisans would later claim about Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as Star Wars). The US, after all, was still devoting vast resources to keeping Stealth secret—both with the security regime and by
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because Reagan used the same speech to reveal an extraordinary proposal to build a vast defense system against strategic missiles, what became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars. The media and public focused overwhelmingly on the missile defense part of the speech and missed the point about conventional weapons.37
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couldn’t keep up with the US, technologically or economically, and that their system had fatal flaws? The poster child for this argument is the Strategic Defense Initiative, President Reagan’s proposed missile-defense system in the 1980s, which some commentators have credited with introducing a new generation of space-based directed-energy
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US military technology in the Cold War, such as Stealth and the x-ray laser for SDI, see Peter Westwick, “The International History of the Strategic Defense Initiative: Economic Competition in the Late Cold War,” Centaurus, 52 (2010), 338–351, and Mihir Pandya, “Security, Information, Infrastructure,” talk at American Anthropological Association annual meeting
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. Jauregui, S. T. Mitchell, and J. Walton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 137–45; see also Peter J. Westwick, “The International History of the Strategic Defense Initiative: American Influence and Economic Competition in the Late Cold War,” Centaurus 52 (Fall 2010), 338–51. 9 Eisenhower’s farewell address is available at https
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–38, 127–128 SRAM. See short-range attack missile Stanley, Max, 178 Star, Moe, 63, 215n.18, 64–65, 66, 67–68 Star Wars. See Strategic Defense Initiative Stavid company, 107–108 Stealth aircraft, 113–114 combat use of, 110 countries with, 186 D-21 Tagboard drone and, 50–51 DARPA’s threshold
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for, 25 U.S. investment in, 193–194 Stegner, Wallace, 15–16 Stewart, James, 27 stock exchange, 157 stored-program principle, 70 strategic bombing, 2 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 120–121, 193 strike aircraft, low-altitude, 127 subcontractors, for B-2 bomber, 173–174 submarine-launched missiles, 144 supersonic cruise, 184–185
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion ofSafety
by Eric Schlosser · 16 Sep 2013 · 956pp · 267,746 words
of Evangelicals, President Reagan called the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world … an evil empire.” Two weeks later, Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative, soon known as Star Wars, a long-range plan to defend the United States by shooting down enemy missiles from outer space. The technology necessary
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red. Reagan was shaken by the drill and by how little could be done to protect America. Although some members of the administration viewed the Strategic Defense Initiative as a clever response to the growing antinuclear movement, an attempt to show America’s aims were peaceful and defensive, Reagan’s belief in the
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’t even exist yet, that might never exist—could stand in the way of eliminating nuclear weapons forever. He refused to place limits on the Strategic Defense Initiative and promised to share its technology. The Soviet Union was conducting exactly the same research, he pointed out, and an antiballistic missile system had already
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and disarmament movement, 445–46 Grenada invasion, 448 military buildup under, 433–35, 441–42, 471–72 presidential campaign, 14, 115 psychological warfare strategy, 446 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 447, 451, 452 Recycled missiles dangers during recycle, 103–4 Launch Complex 374-7 missile as, 32–33 Red Alert (George), 189–90
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–19, 424, 429–32, 436 Titan II launch procedure, 27–28 two-man policy, 28, 30, 298 Strategic bombing strategy, 45, 87, 91, 130, 205 Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), 447, 451, 452 Strategic Deterrence and Global Strike, 476–77 Strategic Operational Control System (SOCS), 154 Strath, William, 141–42 Strath Report, 141
The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991
by Robert Service · 7 Oct 2015
coordinated activity was the world-renowned physicist Yevgeni Velikhov.37 In subsequent years Velikhov became the human face of the USSR’s critique of the Strategic Defense Initiative.38 This group – ‘the Velikhov group’ – operated in an increasingly frantic atmosphere. Soviet scientific and technological lobbies were eager to compete for funds to
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and Eastern Europe to match American scientific progress.29 The French were doing something similar with their Eureka programme as a rival to America’s Strategic Defense Initiative.30 Soviet ideology was adjusted in order to reflect an acknowledgement that the USSR would not overtake Western countries in material production in the
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impressions, stressing that he was intelligent, affable and ‘relatively open’. She reported that Gorbachëv was definite about the USSR’s intention to match the Strategic Defense Initiative if the Americans continued their research programme; but she added that he acknowledged that any Soviet rival programme would place a huge strain on the
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succeeded Clark as National Security Adviser in 1983, agreed with them. Their obstructiveness discommoded Shultz, who also resented the paucity of his information about the Strategic Defense Initiative. At a meeting with its programme chief, Lieutenant Colonel James Abrahamson, he felt that he received no better an account than Abrahamson might have passed
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and scientific-technical cooperation with the West.60 He expressed regret that the Geneva talks were stalling because the Americans refused to concede on the Strategic Defense Initiative – he attributed this to the desire of ‘certain circles’ in the American administration to achieve world domination.61 He pointed to his recent proposal
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1966. Soviet foreign policy was to widen the division between Paris and Washington still further. President Mitterrand had been open about his unhappiness with the Strategic Defense Initiative. At Chernenko’s funeral, he had issued an invitation to Gorbachëv to visit France, which Gorbachëv accepted a few days later.60 The Americans,
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the Sofia meeting, could get the American side to take a more constructive approach before the two leaders met at the Swiss summit.7 The Strategic Defense Initiative, Gorbachëv repeated, was essentially ‘militaristic’. He added that the French ‘Eureka’ project was equally warlike, and he discouraged the East European leaders from believing
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reduction agreement while cautioning against undue concessions. The British and French nuclear forces should be excluded from the talks. America’s military modernization and the Strategic Defense Initiative should be continued; and Gorbachëv should be told to dismantle the Krasnoyarsk radar station.34 If the Soviet delegation travelled with confidence, the Americans matched
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responsibility to preserve peace and increase cooperation is ours.’2 Gorbachëv replied in a constructive spirit, accepting Reagan’s sincerity in promising to keep the Strategic Defense Initiative clear of developing first-strike offensive weapons. He asked the President to accept that as General Secretary he had to assess the objective potential
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‘a spurious timetable of simple steps’. The problem was that he was encouraging ‘unrealistic public expectations’. She advised the President to abide by his Strategic Defense Initiative and to make his willingness to decrease nuclear weapon stockpiles dependent on the achievement of progress in the development of a new defensive system.38
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undue compromise. Soviet scientists, he claimed, were confident about the situation. They had told him that ‘a system can be created to annihilate the Strategic Defense Initiative stations’. But peace was infinitely preferable to war. He recognized that any conflict with America involving nuclear weapons could only end in the destruction of
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Casey agreed with Weinberger, contending that America should demand changes to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Shultz picked up the gauntlet. While continuing with the Strategic Defense Initiative and pursuing the ‘zero option’, he wanted to resume talks with Moscow. Reagan sided with him. He repeated his willingness to share the space-based
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more the USSR was kept guessing, the better – and Weinberger had no concerns about breaching the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to save the Strategic Defense Initiative in all its intimidating potential. Only privately did he admit that extraordinary technological progress was still required. The new space-based system, he commented,
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prone to a Soviet onslaught if America removed its nuclear weapons from the continent.16 Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made open criticisms of the Strategic Defense Initiative and repeated them to Shevardnadze.17 The State Department reacted by putting pressure on particular allies. Shultz told Kohl that Reagan would refuse to
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Shevardnadze told his people in the ministry, and most of them agreed with him.28 KGB Chairman Kryuchkov later claimed that ‘specialists’ concurred that the Strategic Defense Initiative was ‘the greatest deceit’.29 The Party Defence Department’s Oleg Baklanov considered it a gargantuan ‘bluff’ without chance of success.30 Gorbachëv was
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talks between America and the Soviet Union. He shared his doubts about the idea of completely abolishing nuclear weapons. He repeated his scepticism about the Strategic Defense Initiative. He warned Reagan to avoid including French weapons in any projected agreement with Gorbachëv. This was the standard French position, and Reagan listened calmly.
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two days and delivered over Gorbachëv’s letter to Reagan. Gorbachëv focused on the desirability of reinforcing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and confining the Strategic Defense Initiative programme to the research laboratories. He stressed how flexible he was being in excluding British and French nuclear missiles from his immediate proposals. He asked
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Sovietologist and Polish defector Professor Seweryn Bialer told Yakovlev that Gorbachëv would be wasting his time if he tried to cajole Reagan into abandoning the Strategic Defense Initiative.63 (Gorbachëv, of course, was well aware of this.) Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney assured Shevardnadze that Reagan had a serious commitment to peace
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one of Gorbachëv’s advisers – the academic Georgi Arbatov – told Henry Kissinger that Shevardnadze would shortly arrive with Gorbachëv’s new ideas to resolve the Strategic Defense Initiative question. Kissinger immediately phoned the State Department with the information.11 Shevardnadze told the Canadians that Gorbachëv would bring some ‘compromise variants’ with him to
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drop the question of British and French nuclear stockpiles from talks with the Americans. Perhaps he would also change his stance still further on the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan’s officials were divided whenever they discussed the possible outcomes.13 Gorbachëv was gaining a psychological edge before the encounter in Iceland, and
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about the USSR’s Asia-based rocketry. He also appealed to Reagan to appreciate his flexibility in offering to concede the laboratory testing of the Strategic Defense Initiative.31 While recognizing America’s superiority in financial resources, he predicted that the Soviet scientists would invent ways of counteracting the American programme. He
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His argument was that the USSR’s willingness to negotiate was entirely attributable to the build-up of American military capacity and promotion of the Strategic Defense Initiative.22 TV anchors and newspaper columnists remained sceptical about this analysis and suspected that Shultz was holding something back from them. The Wall Street
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in Eastern Europe.35 He failed to convince Gorbachëv, who described Reagan as only pretending to want world peace while threatening the USSR with the Strategic Defense Initiative.36 Ligachëv supported Gromyko’s side of the argument – something without precedent in the Politburo.37 Yakovlev joined everyone else. While continuing to praise
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Shevardnadze still saw weaknesses in the American administration’s posture. The White House could never take Congress for granted, especially on the subject of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Soviet leaders also doubted that America’s economy was as buoyant as Reagan assumed. Shevardnadze claimed that ‘the Americans cannot conduct the arms race
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Pentagon – an extraordinary occasion for the USSR’s Chief of the General Staff. Akhromeev also made the acquaintance of General Abrahamson, the director of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Carlucci proposed a reciprocal programme of visits to research stations; he suggested that Soviet experts should look over the facilities at Stanford University and at
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to ‘a fantastic agreement’ on intermediate-range missiles. He asked for further compromise in order to move towards signature. Kampelman desired to confine the Strategic Defense Initiative to being a research programme only. He was talking without his normal precision. He knew that not even Gorbachëv was demanding so restrictive a set
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Gorbachëv accompanied by Shultz and Carlucci. He confirmed acceptance of the objective of halving the number of strategic ballistic missiles. Although Gorbachëv complained about the Strategic Defense Initiative, he did so in a somewhat perfunctory fashion; he entirely ceased trying to make any further progress in arms reduction conditional upon Reagan agreeing to
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weaponry, why were British ministers not cooperating? Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe’s inertia appeared paradoxical in the light of his past criticism of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Healey received no enlightenment from Howe, who confined himself to expressing doubt that the dogmas of communist policy had disappeared even under Gorbachëv.29 Thatcher
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offensive weaponry, ought to proceed with presidential approval.6 He depicted the USSR as being committed to ‘expansionism’ and world revolution.7 He applauded the Strategic Defense Initiative for having pulled the Soviet leadership back into negotiations.8 Weinberger implicitly denied that the programme had exclusively pacific purposes. He wanted to turn America
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he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and called for vigilance against Soviet cheating and for protection of the American military budget and the Strategic Defense Initiative.14 Weinberger was not the only leading official who stepped down. Assistant Secretary Perle had left the Defense Department in June 1987; he had
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It was months before he accepted the President’s assurances, and he continued to accentuate the probability that Congress would remove adequate funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative after Reagan had left office. He sympathized with those West European powers which looked on American ballistic missiles as the crucial deterrent against Soviet military
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minimum that Gorbachëv demanded.38 Yazov highlighted how the American administration continued with the ‘modernization of its strategic offensive forces and the realization of the Strategic Defense Initiative’ while making demands about bilateral arms reduction. Even Gorbachëv acknowledged America intended to maintain the deterrent capacity of its nuclear weaponry – Bush had made
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. Zaikov called for an agreement to renounce ‘the creation of weaponry on new physical principles’ – whether this was yet another attempt to undermine the Strategic Defense Initiative, he did not make clear. He also argued for obtaining agreement on how the two superpowers would manage industrial demilitarization; but again he was writing
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and the Soviet Union. In Western Europe, most leaders feared for their national security when Reagan set out to abolish nuclear weapons and advance his Strategic Defense Initiative. But though Thatcher, Mitterrand and Andreotti restrained him on some important matters, he never yielded to them on his broad strategy for disarmament. Only
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, ref3 and Shevardnadze ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9 and Soviet–Far East relations ref1 speeches to Party Congress ref1, ref2 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15 temperament ref1 and Thatcher ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5,
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ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10 and German reunification ref1, ref2 and Gorbachëv ref1, ref2 and nuclear disarmament ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3 and Thatcher ref1 visit to Moscow (1984) ref1 visit to Moscow (1986) ref1 visit to Moscow (1988) ref1 Mladenov, Petar ref1, ref2
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ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23, ref24 Reagan’s commitment to Strategic Defense Initiative as stumbling block ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6 and Reykjavik summit (1986) ref1, ref2 and short-range missiles ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Stockholm
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, ref3 seen as a warmonger ref1, ref2 and Shevardnadze ref1, ref2 and Shultz ref1, ref2 Soviet policy ref1, ref2, ref3 Springfield speech (1988) ref1 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21, ref22, ref23 and
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resignation (1990) ref1, ref2, ref3 and Reykjavik summit ref1 rivalry between Yakovlev and ref1 and Romanian crisis ref1 speeches to Supreme Soviet ref1, ref2 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 talks and relationship with Baker ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10 talks and relationship with
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, ref8 SS-23 missiles (‘Oka’) ref1, ref2, ref3 Stalin, Joseph ref1, ref2, ref3 Stanishev, Dmitri ref1 Star Wars movie series ref1 Star Wars programme see Strategic Defense Initiative State Department (US) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17, ref18, ref19, ref20, ref21,
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also Baker, James; Haig, Alexander; Shultz, George Stepanov-Mamaladze, Teimuraz ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Stockholm talks ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 Stoph, Willi ref1, ref2 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15 and Bush ref1 and Gorbachëv ref1, ref2, ref3,
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to Gorbachëv’s January 1986 declaration on nuclear weapons ref1 reaction to Reykjavik summit ref1 and Reagan ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3 talks with Soviet leaders ref1 visit to Moscow (1987) ref1 visit to Poland (1988) ref1 Tikhonov, Nikolai ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4,
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(US) ref1 resignation (1987) ref1, ref2 on selling advanced technology to the USSR ref1 and Shultz ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 and Strategic Defense Initiative ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9 and US–Russian relations ref1 wanting economic sanctions against USSR ref1 West German Defence Ministry ref1
Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War
by Paul Scharre · 23 Apr 2018 · 590pp · 152,595 words
almost ended. It was the height of the Cold War, and each side bristled with nuclear weapons. Earlier that spring, President Reagan had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed “Star Wars,” a planned missile defense shield that threatened to upend the Cold War’s delicate balance. Just three weeks earlier on September 1
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. There is precedent for concerns about the strategic consequences of automation. During development of the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense shield, officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative, U.S. lawmakers wrote a provision into the 1988–1989 National Defense Authorization Act mandating a human in the loop for certain actions. The law
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price manipulation incident, 206 “Flash Crash,” 199–201, 203–4 Knight Capital Group incident, 201–2 Strategic Air Command (SAC), 307 strategic corporal problem, 309 Strategic Defense Initiative, 1, 309–10 strategic stability, 297–302 Strategic Stability (Colby), 299 Strategy of Conflict (Schelling), 341 Stuxnet worm, 213–16, 223, 224 Submarine Safety (SUBSAFE
Red Storm Rising
by Tom Clancy · 2 Jan 1986
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000
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The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era
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The Mission: A True Story
by David W. Brown · 26 Jan 2021
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy
by David Hoffman · 1 Jan 2009 · 719pp · 209,224 words
The Cold War: A New History
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The Cold War
by Robert Cowley · 5 May 1992 · 546pp · 176,169 words
Bomb Scare
by Joseph Cirincione · 24 Dec 2011 · 293pp · 74,709 words
Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism From Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda
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America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy
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Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
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The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union
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The Cardinal of the Kremlin
by Tom Clancy · 2 Jan 1988
Gorbachev: His Life and Times
by William Taubman
The Future of War
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1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
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The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!
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Turning the Tide
by Noam Chomsky · 14 Sep 2015
Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War
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