Period 1
3/9/18
Star Wars program
The Cold War, a war that expanded throughout half of the nineteenth century, a war that caused Russian and American tension to rise. A clear example of the Russian-American tension rising is during 1983, a time where Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev were racing to expand their countries economy, and nuclear missile power. However unlike Russia, America was more concerned about a defensive front as well as an offensive front, one of Reagans most infamous and influential ideas was known as the Star Wars program, or the Strategic Defence Initiative. In theory, the Star Wars program was a group of satellites would be able to shoot space lasers and killing beams that would hit and destroy incoming Russian missiles. The idea, if possible would be the most costly project that the American economy would have seen during the 1980s, despite the Star Wars Program being an awesome idea, it wasn't very realistically. The American government had not developed any technology that was anywhere near being able to create a project like the Star Wars program, not only that but it was extremely costly.
Although the Star Wars program wasn't able to be developed and put into use, it still lead the American government to have leverage and negotiation skills that they could use against the Russain government. 
While it seems like a hilarious idea to us now, it is interesting to see how many people actually thought that "Star Wars" was a great political strategy at the time. Many people loved the idea, and Reagan received tons of support. Interestingly enough, SDI actually is not too different from the proposals Trump is making for anti-ballistic missile systems today, and he may have even taken inspiration from Reagan's infamous "Star Wars" program.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/president-reagan-calls-for-launching-star-wars-initiative-march-23-1983-236259
Good post, Gavin! Thank you for highlighting what fears of the Cold War caused in the 1980s. Although the initiative seems ridiculous to us now, there are many different viewpoints on whether or not SDI was a key element in ending the Cold War. Most of the Soviet policies at the time indicated that they were concerned about the program, but unfortunately, there has been very little reliable information about their response. Other people argue that the Soviet Union had still invested heavily in ballistic missiles, which increases the likelihood that SDI would have led to another round of an arms buildup between the two countries. There is, however, a consensus that both the United States and Soviet Union were willing to talk to each other and had different attitudes. It's interesting to think about how there is still as much mystery today about the effects of SDI as there was back then.
ReplyDeletehttp://russianforces.org/podvig/2013/03/did_star_wars_help_end_the_col.shtml