The Strategic Defence Initiative: US Policy and the Soviet Union by Mira Duric (review)

Abstract

542 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 the methods of the Soviet regime. This is an excellent piece of research in every sense. ChristChurch, Oxford CATHERINE ANDREYEV Duric, Mira. TheStrategic Defence Initiative: USPolicy andtheSoviet Union. Ashgate, Aldershotand Burlington,VT, 2003. vii + I90 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. C49.95. DURING the I980s thepotential (ordangers)of the StrategicDefence Initiative (SDI) became the most controversial issue in international politics. Indeed while working at the Royal United Services Institutein Whitehall, I recall a senior admiral observing that he did not know how defence commentators had managed without it. Mira Duric's monograph aims to assessthe place of the SDI in the process that culminated with the end of the Cold War. She brings a single-minded, no-nonsense approach to this complex process. She believes 'in reality' that SDI did not represent a threat but, in response to those inclined to boast that it brought the USSR to its knees in I989, she declaresboldly (andpersuasively)that 'one explanation alone is not sufficient to explain the end of the Cold War' (pp. I-2). Her book is designed to be a contributionto the historyofAmericanforeignpolicy, asshehasnot consulted Soviet documents. Duric has succeeded in fulfillingthe aimsshehas setherself.Her book offers a competent surveyof the issuesand, although occasionallyslightlyrepetitive, is clearand based on a thoroughstudyof an extensiveliteraturesupplemented by interviewswith the keyfiguresin the Reagan administration.Each chapter is concluded with a cogent synopsisof its arguments.These are advanced in short paragraphsaccompanied by numerous sub-headingsthat offer helpful signposts. Duric devotes some attention to the pre-SDI developments in ballistic missile defence, especially in the Soviet Union, that did a lot to undercut the provisionsof the Anti-BallisticMissile(ABM)Treatyof 1972. As she shrewdly points out, had the SDI technology a proven record of failurethen the Soviet Union would have encouraged the US to pour its resources into the effort. The main reasonwhy SDI became such a topical matterafter I98I had more to do with political issues and the personal enthusiasms of Ronald Reagan himself. He claimed SDI as 'his' idea, and it had the added convenience of serving as a counter-weight to the nuclear 'freeze' movement by presenting Reagan as a statesman genuinely looking for a solution to the intractable problemsof nuclearwarwhile maintainingAmerican strategicsuperiority. In her extended treatmentof the development of the rationalebehind SDI, Duric draws out a paradox. Despite Mikhail Gorbachev's claim that SDI would 'fomentmistrustand suspicion'between the Superpowers(p. 47), their relations were greatly improved by i988. In three summits, at Reykjavik (1986), Washington(i 987) and Moscow (1988), the 'atmosphere'in which the negotiationswere conducted was transformed.Reagan had a political motive for his summitry,especially in agreeing to the Reykjavikmeeting. He sought to out-flank his Democratic congressional critics, who had reduced the REVIEWS 543 funding for the programme and would continue to do so down to I988. Reagan, moreover, triedto give a bigger 'impulse'(pp. 68, 70) to the faltering arms reduction talksat Geneva. The summits, despite false starts,resultedin solid achievements. Probably the most importantwas the Soviet acceptance at the Washington summit of the 'zero option' and the removal of Russian intermediaterange nuclearforces (INF)from Europe. Reagan refusedto halt work on SDI because he genuinely believed that its defensive shield would eliminate nuclear weapons. Gorbachev (who believed that Reagan's offer to share SDI research, though sincere, would never be realized) gradually changed his tactics. He stopped frontal assaults on SDI, hoping that the concessions he made, especiallyover INF, would lead to an acceptance of the wisdom of the ABM Treaty. Arguably the existence of SDI hindered the signingof even more ambitioustreatiesto get rid of nuclearweapons, though its development also ensured the Soviet presence and an urgent readinessto reach such concordatsthat had previouslybeen lacking. Consequently, Duric concludes sensiblythat SDI contributedto the rapid dissolutionof the Soviet Union 'butit does not explain everything'(p. I28). It represented a technological and economic leap that served to expose as fraudulentthe Soviet Union's claimsto Superpowerstatus.Yetthe issue as Americanwealth and power continues to grow in relationto otherpowers has not been resolved. George W. Bush'scommitment to the national missile defence system(NMD) hasbeen obscuredby the attention and criticism devoted to his conduct of the 'waron terror'.Duric...