Word: nuclearization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S. could entail an intercontinental blitzkrieg: thousands of missiles launched from enemy territory, letting loose tens of thousands of deadly warheads surrounded by a nebula of hurtling decoys and debris. In half an hour, this lethal ''threat cloud'' would be over the U.S., raining destruction on cities and military targets alike. Trying to stop this deluge would require enormous technological breakthroughs in at least four areas: sensors, lasers, particle beams and computer programming. Should such advances occur, SDI proponents argue, a reasonably effective Star Wars defense would reduce to virtually zero the number of Soviet...
...Ronald Reagan, the mutual suicide pact that has precariously preserved the nuclear peace for the past quarter-century is unacceptable, indeed immoral. Why not, he asked in his famous Star Wars speech, switch from a policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) to one of mutual assured survival by creating a defensive shield that would ''render nuclear weapons obsolete''? Although that dream might seem unassailable, the strategic realities involved raise a far more unsettling question: Will the attempt to create a nuclear shield enhance stability or undermine it? In attempting to rid the planet of doomsday weapons, might SDI merely increase...
...Defense Initiative is a starry vision rather than an actual weapons program. It exists only in the mind's eye of Ronald Reagan and on the blinking computer screens and slide projectors of an array of purposeful scientists. Yet the President's concept of a space-based shield against nuclear weapons-the most radical plan put forward by any Administration since the dawn of the nuclear age-has become the single most powerful force affecting Soviet-American relations. It is also becoming the chief element in an intensifying showdown, within the Administration as well as at the bargaining table...
...because of any scientific breakthroughs or the lack of them, but because a series of changes in the turbulent political and diplomatic atmosphere makes it imperative to come to grips with what is the most important strategic issue of the decade: SDI's role in shaping the future nuclear balance...
...TIME on June 3, the discussions revealed that fundamental disagreements still exist about the nature of the program. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle and Chief SDI Scientist Gerold Yonas agreed that SDI should not initially be regarded as a way to protect the nation's population from nuclear attack, as Reagan has envisioned. The purpose, said Perle, is "the defense of America's capacity to retaliate." Paul Nitze, the Administration's senior arms-control adviser, disagreed. "Maybe it's (Perle's) view," he said, "but I can't see the rationale...