The SDI, never a realistic idea, brought about an end to the arms race. Discuss.
HISTORY ASSIGNMENT The SDI, never a realistic idea, brought about an end to the arms race. Discuss. The arms race in the twentieth century was fuelled only by the rivalry between the two superpowers during the Cold War - it actually drew to a close when the USSR broke up. The SDI, launched by Reagan, undoubtedly must have created a certain amount of tension for the Soviets but it certainly was not the predominant factor that brought about the demise of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of the arms race. Gorbachev, when he became the Soviet President, was serious about stemming the rot that had developed in his country's economy. He thus, did not want to increase defence expenditure, and tried to begin a fresh process of arms control and reduction; he wanted to make the world completely nuclear free in fifteen years. However, Reagan, who is widely seen as a right-wing President was suspicious of his motives in the beginning, even after the Soviets sent out a positive signal by unilaterally banning nuclear testing for a year. Reagan simply wanted to 'root out the evil
Soviet empire'. As he said "But it is inconceivable to me that we can go on thinking down the future, not only for ourselves and our lifetime but for other generations, that the great nations of the world will sit here, like people facing themselves across a table, each with a cocked gun, and no one knowing whether someone might tighten their finger on the trigger." He was bent upon developing the Star Wars project and his SDI programme, which certainly was not a realistic idea (as it was not technologically and financially feasible) only served to unnerve the Soviets; ...
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Soviet empire'. As he said "But it is inconceivable to me that we can go on thinking down the future, not only for ourselves and our lifetime but for other generations, that the great nations of the world will sit here, like people facing themselves across a table, each with a cocked gun, and no one knowing whether someone might tighten their finger on the trigger." He was bent upon developing the Star Wars project and his SDI programme, which certainly was not a realistic idea (as it was not technologically and financially feasible) only served to unnerve the Soviets; SDI, if successful would completely eliminate the theory of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) as the project envisioned the creation of an anti-missile shield over the USA. Incoming missiles would thus, be rendered ineffective - the Soviets felt that if the Americans achieved this, they would have enough incentive to simply launch a first strike and destroy the USSR. However, they were also aware of the fact that Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiatives were not going to work - this is evident from the fact that Soviet military spending did not increase significantly in the 1980s. From 1983 to 1987 the Strategic Defense Initiative alarmed Soviet leaders because it threatened to reverse what they saw as the trend toward strategic stability and stable costs. Nonetheless, they did not respond to it by creating their own SDI program. That is, they continued their existing research programs on lasers and other advanced technologies, plus their existing design-work on space weaponry, but they did not mount an effort to test or develop SDI-type weapons. In addition they studied counter-measures to space-based weaponry, but since the SDIO never designed a plausible system, they had nothing specific to study, and their military spending was not affected. Between 1985 and 1987 Gorbachev spent a great deal of effort trying to convince the Reagan administration to restrain the program, presumably because he thought his own military-industrial complex would eventually force him to adopt a program of some sort to counter SDI, but by the end of 1987 the Soviet leadership no longer regarded SDI as a threat. This completely disproves the theory that SDI, Reagan's military buildup and the ideological crusade against Communism had delivered the knockout punch to the Soviet system that had been on the ropes since the early 1980s. It is also not practical to believe that SDI and the U.S. military buildup forced the Soviets to spend more than they could afford on their defenses and/or convinced them of the inherent weaknesses of their system, since the Russians did not even increase their military spending. I feel that it was Gorbachev who was the main driving force behind arms control, as in 1988 he began a round of budget cuts, bringing the Soviet defence budget back down to its 1980 level. In other words, while the U.S. military budget was growing at an average of 8 percent per year, the Soviets did not attempt to keep up, and their military spending did not rise even as might have been expected given the war they were fighting in Afghanistan. Without any spending increases, the Soviets continued to turn out and deploy strategic warheads at about the same rate the U.S. did. When the START I treaty was signed in 1991, the U.S. had deployed 12,646 strategic warheads, the Soviet Union 11,212 - the numbers were so large as to be almost meaningless in terms of deterrence. During the 1980s, the Soviet economy continued to deteriorate as it had during the 1970s. The economic decline resulted from the failures of the system created by Lenin and Stalin and not from any effort on the part of the Reagan administration. Without Gorbachev, however, the Soviet Union might have survived for many more years, for the system, thought on the decline, was nowhere near collapse. It was Gorbachev's efforts to reverse the decline and to modernize his country that knocked the props out from under the system. The revolution was in essence a series of decisions made by one man, and it came as a surprise precisely because it did not follow from a systemic breakdown. The Arms Race of the Cold War almost came to a virtual stop after the breakup, as the Russian Federation had severe economic problems in the early 1990s, and could not afford to keep producing nuclear weapons.