ABSTRACT
Amidst all the clamor and din surrounding the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), some observers have grasped the obvious: that the splendid defense envisaged by President Ronald Reagan and by precious few others probably will never come to pass. The diminution of Star Wars already has begun. Boost-phase intercept, the only robust defense possible, was narrowly rejected by the Senate Armed Services Committee as a “realistic goal” for the SDI program in July 1986. The Reagan administration found arms control a tranquilizer for the US people and a blatant gift to the Soviets and views strategic defenses as the necessary corrective. Point defenses are said to be legal under the provisions of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. There are a host of technical objections to point defenses as well, although it is likely that some rudimentary system of point defense could work reasonably well against a very finite “threat cloud” and in the absence of countermeasures.
