Nuclear weapons are explosive devices that use nuclear fission to generate enormous heat and destructive power. strategic nuclear weapon The missile is liquid-fueled, and categorized as a "super-heavy" ICBM one with enough lifting capacity to deliver multiple warheads arranged in a so-called multiple independently targeted. [17] Through declassified papers of American intelligence agencies the wider implications and effects of the program were examined and revealed that due to the potential neutralization of its arsenal and resulting loss of a balancing power factor, SDI was a cause of grave concern for the Soviet Union and her primary successor state Russia. The Politburo is the executive council or cabinet of ministers in the Soviet Union and other socialist nations. Point Alpha Policy makers tied it closely with the domino theory. The US argument that these are purely. Research out of hypervelocity railgun technology was done to build an information base about railguns so that SDI planners would know how to apply the technology to the proposed defense system. A secret police is a state-run police force that investigates, spies on, identifies and eliminates potential opponents. [69] LACE was also used to evaluate ground-based adaptive optics, a technique now used in civilian telescopes to remove atmospheric distortions. Sharon Watkins Lang. During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an anti-ballistic missile program that was designed to shoot down nuclear missiles in space. The USSR would join this alliance following Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM system allowed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Viet Cong fought against American forces during the Vietnam War (1965-75). McCarthyism saw hundreds of individuals interrogated and/or punished for their alleged communist sympathies. Contents 1 Background 2 Soviet nuclear program 3 Long-range nuclear missiles 4 The nuclear arms race 5 Soviet size over quantity 6 Other nuclear-equipped states 7 Nuclear policy 8 Nuclear paranoia Background Russia Developing First Brand-New Short-Range Air-To-Air Missile Since The End Of The Cold War. These overruns are baked into the system. The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush in Moscow in July 1991. Stalinist They were launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. It would blow us away, said Hill. It was the location whereMao Zedong proclaimed a communist victory in October 1949, and a pro-democratic student demonstration crushed by the governmentin June 1989. Many[who?] The Tet Offensive was a major campaign, launched by communists in Vietnam in January 1968. The Kremlin expressed concerns that space-based missile defenses would make nuclear war inevitable. An Afghan guerrilla with a US-made Stinger anti-aircraft missile in this photo taken between November 1987 and January 1988. . [89], In 1987 a disguised Mir space station module was lifted on the inaugural flight of the Energia booster as the Polyus and it has since been revealed that this craft housed a number of systems of the Skif laser, which were intended to be clandestinely tested in orbit, if it had not been for the spacecraft's attitude control system malfunctioning upon separation from the booster and it failing to reach orbit. ping pong diplomacy SS-N-30 Russian warships let fly 26 of these cruise missiles on October 7, 2017. Star Wars (see Strategic Defence Initiative). What about stealth bombers? Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear, chemical, biological, or conventional warheads in a ballistic flight trajectory.The term "anti-ballistic missile" is a generic term conveying a system designed to intercept and destroy any type of ballistic threat; however, it is . We had no idea where the idea had come from, none of us, said Kenneth Adelman. The Heritage Foundation provided High Frontier with space to conduct research, and Graham published a 1982 report entitled, "High Frontier: A New National Strategy" that examined in greater detail how the system would function.[40]. FLAGE scored a direct hit against a MGM-52 Lance missile in flight, at White Sands Missile Range in 1987. Studies on the topic suggested attacking a V-2 rocket would be difficult because the flight time was so short that it would leave little time to forward information through command and control networks to the missile batteries that would attack them. Polling data from the 1980s supports this notion. Socialist systems involve, among other things, government control of the economy and prohibitions of private ownership of capital. Ritter is of course heavily censored on mainstream platforms and is widely condemned by officials in the US government, including those in the State Dept. [35][36], In 1979, Teller contributed to a Hoover Institution publication where he claimed that the US would be facing an emboldened USSR due to their work on civil defense. Strategic Defence Initiative (or SDI, Star Wars program) This Cold War site contains articles, perspectives and sources on global events and tensions between 1945 and 1991. Wind of change A revolution is a period of rapid political, social and/or economic change in a particular nation or region. Its policymakers wanted to contain Soviet communism to keep Europe and the world free for US companies and American trade. During the mid-to-late 1980s a number of panel discussions on lasers and SDI took place at various laser conferences. Treaty of Brussels Another criticism of SDI was that it would require the United States to modify previously ratified treaties. Boost Surveillance and Tracking System was part of the SDIO in the late 1980s, and was designed to assist detection of missile launches, especially during the boost phase; however, once the SDI program shifted toward theater missile defense in the early 1990s, the system left SDIO control and was transferred to the Air Force. The group met with Reagan several times during 1981 and 1982, apparently with little effect, while the buildup of new offensive weaponry like the B-1 Lancer and MX missile continued; however, in early 1983, the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with the president and outlined the reasons why they might consider shifting some of the funding from the offensive side to new defensive systems. Maybe that is the greatest benefit (251). [100] Parnas said he joined the panel with the desire to make nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete" but soon concluded that the concept was "a fraud". Final hover testing occurred in 1992 using miniaturized components similar to what would have actually been used in an operational interceptor. Truman's decisions shaped it by enormously increasing wars and deaths and war-dismemberments and destructions and refugees, and especially by creating (and most especially by the continued cooperation of all U.S. Presidents since the time of GHW Bush who secretly decided to . The INF Treaty, which eliminated all short-range (310-620 miles) and intermediate-range (620-3420 miles) nuclear missiles, was signed at the Washington Summit later that year. The Speech of Hope was a public address, given by US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in Stuttgart, Germany in September 1946. This device would destroy the ICBM reentry vehicle on collision. The first Red Scare followed the Russian Revolution (1918-19), the second emerged in the post-war and McCarthyist eras (from the late 1940s to the early 1950s). Reagan instructed Secretary of State Shultz to give Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin an advance copy of the speech announcing SDI. Amongst its terms was a limitation on the number of nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). After World War II, the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its satellite states began a decades-long struggle for supremacy known as the Cold War. URL: https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/cold-war-glossary-m-z/ Secret Speech ERINT was a prototype missile similar to the FLAGE, but it used a new solid-propellant rocket motor that allowed it to fly faster and higher than FLAGE. Reagan confirmed this fact in a 1984 letter: Frankly, I have no idea what the nature of such a defense might be. During this time, the world was largely divided into two ideological camps the United States-led capitalist "West" and the Soviet-dominated communist "East." Canada aligned with the West. Madman theory In a speech to the Politburo in March 1986, Gorbachev exclaimed, Maybe we should just stop being afraid of SDI! If they're like probably 90% of the population, they don't intend to make any big lifestyle changes or sacrifices to combat whatever climate change is occurring, and that's if it actually is occurring. Beginning in late 1986, Abrahamson proposed that SDI would be based on the system he had previously dismissed, a version of High Frontier now renamed the "Strategic Defense System, Phase I Architecture". The Secret Speech was an address given to the Congress of Soviets by Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956. [90] Soviet motivations behind attempting to launch components of the Skif laser in the form of Polyus were, according to interviews conducted years later, more for propaganda purposes in the prevailing climate of focus on US SDI, than as an effective defense technology, as the phrase "Space based laser" has a certain political capital. The Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser program uses a chemical laser which has successfully intercepted a missile taking off,[65] so an offshoot of SDI could be said to have successfully implemented one of the key goals of the program. Ronald Reagans advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative struck me as bizarre, Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. Scientific experts had not made any groundbreaking discoveries in the years leading up to the announcement of SDI, and they were far from certain whether such a system was even possible. It did not take into account limited launches, accidental launches, rogue launches, or launches by non-state entities or covert proxies. The role of the organization, however, remained largely unclear. Star Wars program (see Strategic Defence Initiative). The launch of Sputnik I triggered American fears that the US had fallen behind the Soviet Union in space technology. SDI was likely seen not only as a threat to the physical security of the Soviet Union, but also as part of an effort by the United States to seize the strategic initiative in arms controls by neutralizing the military component of Soviet strategy. Ambassador to Canada Thomas Niles explained, The Europeans saw SDI as an indication that the United States, at least theoretically, was interested in backing away from this commitment to Europe and building a Fortress America, with this high-tech system that would protect us, but not them.. [32] Though classified at the time, a detailed study on a Soviet space-based laser system began no later than 1976 as the Skif, a 1 MW Carbon dioxide laser along with the anti-satellite Kaskad, an in-orbit missile platform. Reagan's 'Star Wars' Defense Program Promised to Block Nukes From Space - HISTORY Why Reagan's 'Star Wars' Defense Plan Remained Science Fiction Reagan said he wanted to avoid nuclear. Science Advisor George Keyworth argued, I have been asked time and time again one simple question, is it now a good time to attempt a development of a technological solution to making ballistic missiles obsolete? "[43], In 1984, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was established to oversee the program, which was headed by Lt. General James Alan Abrahamson USAF, a past Director of the NASA Space Shuttle program.[1]. mutually assured destruction (or MAD) The missile gap refers toan American perception, common in the 1950s, that the Soviet Union possessed a larger stockpile of ballistic missiles. thermonuclear weapon nuclear sharing The Viet Cong was a Western term for the National Liberation Front, or NLF, a group of communist guerrillas who operated inSouth Vietnamese and between 1959 and 1975. First, the rails guiding the projectile must carry very high power. In development since the 1960s and in operation from 1971[30] until the 1990s, it featured the nuclear-tipped A350 exoatmospheric interceptor missile. Ukrainian Air Force explains why Russians are using Shahed UAVs again, Ukrainska Pravda reports, citing Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for the Air Force of Ukraine. It involved using deliberate signals and sending false information to communist countries, to create the impression that Nixon was unstable and may use nuclear weapons against them. The experiment validated stabilization, tracking, and pointing concepts and proved that a laser could be relayed from the ground to a 60cm mirror on an orbiting satellite and back to another ground station with a high degree of accuracy and for extended durations.[68]. McCarran Act nuclear winter The Announcement On March 23, 1983, President Reagan announced the SDI program in a television address broadcast nationally. [50], After test failures with the first three flight tests because of guidance and sensor problems, the DOD reported that the fourth and final test on June 10, 1984, was successful, intercepting the Minuteman RV with a closing speed of about 6.1km/s at an altitude of more than 160km (99mi).[51]. This is also a story that risks disappearing into its own "success." After all, the Cold War is history. In most cases, local communist, socialist and left-wing groups were merged into larger parties. secret police As Secretary of State Schultz explained, Prior to the presidents speech, even the possibility that the United States might seriously seek to defend itself from nuclear attack seemed outlandish. In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced out of semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet . The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and its subsequent protocol,[102] which limited missile defenses to one location per country at 100 missiles each (which the USSR had and the US did not), would have been violated by SDI ground-based interceptors.