William Courtney
President Trump has proposed that to “protect our homeland” he would move ahead with a Golden Dome missile defense. The Department of Defense is seeking a hefty budget increase for it next year, but the program is controversial.
Missile defense was contentious also in the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan offered a vision to render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Golden Dome proponents might avoid some of the disputes of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) era.
Golden Dome recalls Reagan's concept for SDI to defend the United States against long-range ballistic missiles. It was seen as futuristic or infeasible. Although controversy weakened support for SDI, ever since Reagan's presidency Congress has funded work on long-range missile defense. This is in addition to Congressional backing for tactical ballistic missile defense to safeguard U.S. forces on land and at sea.
Although controversy weakened support for SDI, ever since Reagan's presidency Congress has funded work on long-range missile defense.
Don't Exaggerate
Reagan's vision was seen by many as other-worldly, sapping SDI's credibility. A 1987 American Physical Society study said directed energy technologies, if ever to work, needed gains of a hundred times or more. Rigged tests spawned criticisms. A Reagan decision document warned of a Soviet missile defense “breakout,” but the USSR was lagging.
Edward Teller, a hydrogen bomb designer, touted to Reagan the idea of an x-ray laser powered by a nuclear explosion in space, possibly over the heads of Americans. Teller lost ground when he claimed a laser could shoot down the “entire Soviet” land-based missile force. The Reagan administration soon vetoed this concept, clarifying that SDI would be nonnuclear only.
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