Word: leakproof
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Ronald Reagan's hope for his Strategic Defense Initiative is to render nuclear missiles obsolete by erecting a leakproof umbrella over the U.S. But skeptics argue that an attempt to build a Star Wars defense would be "destabilizing" and would make nuclear war more likely, not less...
...away from a strategy based on the ability to threaten with offensive power to greater reliance upon systems that don't threaten anybody." A switch from offensive to defensive deterrence would indeed be a radical change, but not necessarily for the better. Since it is hard to imagine a leakproof nuclear umbrella, each side would still be vulnerable to a first strike. Moreover, each would have to worry about the other's achieving a decisive advantage in defensive weapons. The attraction of MAD, by contrast, is its grim certainty...
...Foreign Affairs, the U.S. quarterly. The critics were former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, onetime National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, ex-Arms Negotiator Gerard Smith and George F. Kennan, Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952. They argued that Star Wars does not "respect reality," chiefly because a leakproof defense is impossible and the attempt to create one could nullify Reagan's effort at reaching an agreement on arms control...
Numerous critics, including many scientists, arms-control experts and even some military officers argue that: 1) There is no technology in sight that would ensure a leakproof system, and any holes at all would permit an enemy to wreak massive destruction on the U.S.; 2) Any serious attempt to erect such a defense would inevitably destabilize the roughly balanced nuclear equation, since the other side would counter with its own defensive system and enlarge its offensive forces to overcome the opponent's umbrella. Furthermore, deployment and even certain types of tests would violate the main arms-control treaty that...
After a year of study and refinement in the Executive Branch, the Strategic Defense Initiative now implicitly accepts the impracticality of a leakproof umbrella. Instead it adopts the somewhat more modest "interim" goal of "enhancing," rather than replacing, deterrence based on offensive weapons. The idea is that Soviet plans for an attack would be further complicated by even an imperfect American defense...