Britain's response to the Strategic Defence Initiative

Abstract

The Strategic Defence Initiative and President Reagan's announcement of the American commitment to seek to acquire effective ballistic missile defences certainly form one of the most difficult defence policy issues a British government has had to grapple with since the Second World War. By aiming at a defence against nuclear weapons, SDI reintroduced into strategic debate an issue which had been shelved at the start of the 1970s, not only because of the signing of the ABM Treaty, but also because ballistic missile defences (BMD) seemed inherently difficult against a determined enemy. The SDI issue carried enormous implications in terms of technological and financial resources, which raised questions about the opportunity costs involved for US conventional forces, and it threatened to inflict further damage on US-Soviet relations which were already strained. These factors made the issue still more awkward. The exotic technologies central to SDI-laser and other directed-energy weapons, and space-based tracking and battle-management systems-were not easy to assess, and a cloud of uncertainty enveloped the whole SDI issue, as to how the Soviet Union would react, how the technology would develop, and how future American Presidents and Congressmen would respond to Reagan's vision and initiative. Moreover, President Reagan's speech on 23 March 1983 laying the foundations for SDI came as a complete surprise to the British government, which, like all the other American allies, had not been consulted in advance. Ministers and officials were caught off balance, and their private responses ranged from (predominantly) concern to hostility. While no one denied the need for the United States to match Soviet efforts, the President's vision of a comprehensive defence was rejected as impracticable. British preference would have been for the United States to continue, or quietly expand, its work already in progress on BMD technologies, while avoiding the high political profile of SDI. Yet the United States had a potent political argument in its assertion that it should seek to defend its population from nuclear destruction. In these circumstances it is scarcely surprising that British policy towards SDI has had a hesitant and even disjointed look, slow to emerge and not particularly well coordinated when it did appear. Up to the end of 1985, British policy in this area was marked by four features, two of style and two of content, to be discussed individually below. However, it should be emphasized that these four features will evolve and perhaps disappear as the SDI debate continues into the late 1980s. Indeed, one of the central doubts about British declaratory policy on SDI has been whether it is relevant as a guide to action in future situations. The four features will be discussed in turn in what follows. They can be summarized as: (1) make no hasty response to the SDI; (2) give the SDI programme only limited support; (3) seek UK participation in SDI research; and (4) deal with SDI on a bilateral basis directly with the United States.