Word: sdi
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...serious questions remain among several allies about participation in SDI research, let alone the ultimate deployment of a Star Wars system. While such stalwart U.S. friends as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl initially endorsed the idea, there are indications that neither the British nor the West German government is altogether sure of its course...
...President's accent on offensive arms was no accident. It was part of a campaign to swivel attention at Geneva away from defensive innovations like the celebrated Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as Star Wars. The Soviets are determined to make SDI the centerpiece of negotiations. The U.S., by contrast, is eager to cut a deal on reducing existing nuclear stockpiles and then worry about still-to-be-perfected space weapons. Said National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane: "It will take time to establish, much less understand, our new strategic-defense concept. That understanding is what we are after...
...biggest-ticket R. and D. item is Reagan's Space Defense Initiative, better known as Star Wars. The Administration wants to increase research funding for the SDI from $1.4 billion this year to $3.7 billion in 1986 and spend a whopping $30 billion during the next six years. Because a space-based defense system is still highly speculative, the research encompasses a dizzying array of technologies, like electromagnetic "rail guns" to fire projectiles at extremely high speeds across hundreds of miles of space and particle accelerators to hit a missile with a stream of atoms traveling near the speed...
...objective. Shultz last week devoted many of his 14 hours of talks with Gromyko to explaining the U.S. position that successful development of a defensive system would enhance nuclear stability and lessen the danger of a cataclysm. He got nowhere. Gromyko once grumbled, "I have heard six explanations of SDI and I still do not understand your point." In his departure statement, which he read to reporters in English, Moscow's Foreign Minister took care to note that "the Soviet side particularly stressed the importance of preventing the militarization of outer space...
Reagan did add that if a successful system is developed, "then is the time to turn to the world, to our allies, possibly even our adversaries," for discussions preceding actual deployment. But that point could be far in the future. Moreover, the Soviets consider SDI research to be a threat even if it never produces a deployable Star Wars system, because it might lead to technological breakthroughs that would give the U.S. an insurmountable lead in offensive types of weapons, including those that might be based in space...