The Strategic Defense Initiative and US-Soviet Relations: 1983–1987

Abstract

In March 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was little more than the vision of a president, the hope of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the obsession of (a few) scientists. As a practical matter, SDI was a theoretical ambition that was decades and billions of dollars away from being deployed as a defense system. Yet, largely because of Reagan’s stubborn commitment to SDI, and because of what SDI meant to Soviet leaders, it became the lever upon which negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union would turn, at least until early 1987. In the prior chapter we saw how SDI was rooted in Reagan’s cognetics and served to exploit and mitigate political issues. This chapter explores what might be called the soft deployment of SDI at the negotiating table: how Reagan used it, why the Soviets fought it, and its role in shaping the treaties that followed. While both the Soviets and some senior members of the Reagan Administration viewed SDI as a card to be traded, Reagan did not. In Reagan’s mind, SDI was an essential (and therefore nonnegotiable) component of his mission: the pursuit of a divine imperium of freedom. As we saw with Carter, policy initiatives that have cognetic origins are, for better or worse, both strong in the moment and durable over time.