In March 1983 US President Ronald Reagan, encouraged by recent experiments with beam weapons, announced his plan to build a missile defense system, what would become known as the Strategic Defense Initiative—or, more popularly, Star Wars. Reagan’s speech set off a vocal public debate in the US over SDI’s technical feasibility and strategic implications. The subsequent literature has relied almost exclusively on the American perspective and American sources. But it takes two to tango. The program was directed at the Soviet Union, and the Soviet response helped determine SDI’s influence on the Cold War. The literature has also concentrated on the view from the White House, neglecting the science and technology involved. For a program consisting of very high technology, literally, that political focus has distorted the picture.
Including the technology and the Soviet perspective in the history of SDI yields particular insight into a basic historical question: Why did...
