The Strategic Defense Initiative and the End of the Cold War: Reagan’s Bluff or a Genius Strategic Ploy?
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2019-07-05
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en
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This thesis has set out to further investigate the role the Strategic Defense Initiative had in the ending of the Cold War. It has done so by investigating Reagan and his administration’s views on the USSR and the nuclear threat during his first term in office and by examining the rhetoric and foreign policies Reagan and his administration undertook in that first term. This was done to create a frame in which the thoughts behind the need for such a defense could become clear. Reagan changed his rhetoric from an aggressive and confrontational nature into a tone that was more open towards discussion between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thereby, showing that Reagan feared the possible consequences of a nuclear war and thought of the SDI as a way of making nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. This thesis also explained the details surrounding the initiative providing the history in research preceding its implementation, detailing the importance of the ABM treaty of 1972, the initial goal and intended research by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, a summary of important critiques and controversies surrounding the SDI and showing what has become of all the research. This was done to show that the idea of the SDI was not far-fetched. Furthermore, it discussed how the SDI was used, intentionally and unintentionally, as a political and diplomatic tool by detailing the most common held beliefs surrounding the ending of the Cold War. This thesis contends that it is highly probable that the thought of the United States gaining technological and military superiority via the SDI, thereby undermining the MAD principle, caused the new Soviet leadership to conclude that they would have to drastically reform their domestic and foreign policies. As their economy was failing and this renewed arms race would further destroy it. The unintentional role of the SDI was that of an important diplomatic tool.
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