American civilians are now in the line of fire.Smurf said:The Cold War is over? I thought they just transferred the fear from 'Communists' to 'Terrorists'... really.. what's changed.
Yeah, and there's that...Grogs said:Smurf: What has changed is that the possibility of a full-scale gloabal thermonuclear war has dropped considerably. We may be *more* likely to have a single isolated nuclear event under terrorists than the old Soviet Union, but only an exchange between 2 very powerful nations could manage to wipe out the entire human race.
I recently started playing poker and I rarely bluff unless I have at least something in my hand to fall back on. Bluff or not, billions of dollars were spent on it. And though we could have spent a trillion and not gotten a single satellite up, it produced the enabling technologies for everything from the Airborne Laser (basically theater [as opposed to strategic or global] SDI) to adaptic optics telescopes, to cheap CD players.Grogs said:Also, unlike NMD, I don't think SDI was ever seriously comtemplated. It was a bluff, just like in a poker game. Even if the US had had the technology in the 80's (very unlikely), it was unlikely they would have spent trillions of dollars on it. Ronald Reagan did a very good job of putting a serious face on it, enough so that if you buy into the theory, the USSR was faced with the prospect of building its own SDI system or else the US would be impervious to it's nuclear missiles.
The SDI, or Strategic Defense Initiative, was a program proposed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 as a means to develop a missile defense system to protect the United States from potential nuclear attacks. It was highly controversial and sparked debates about the role of nuclear weapons in international relations. Viewing the SDI through a political lens allows for a deeper understanding of the motivations and implications of the program.
The 1980s were marked by heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War. The SDI was proposed during this time as a response to the perceived threat of the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities. The political climate of the era played a significant role in shaping the development and reception of the SDI.
Critics of the SDI argued that it was a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and would escalate the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. They also questioned the feasibility and effectiveness of the technology and the potential for it to destabilize international relations.
The SDI further strained the already tense relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. It heightened fears of a potential nuclear war and sparked debates about the morality of nuclear weapons. The program also had implications for the international balance of power and arms control negotiations.
The SDI never fully materialized as originally envisioned, but it had a lasting impact on international relations. It sparked debates about the role of technology in warfare and the ethics of using weapons of mass destruction. The legacy of the SDI also includes its influence on subsequent missile defense programs and arms control agreements.