ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the dimensions and the obstacles involved in pursuing strategic defense and looks at the US Strategic Defense Initiative. During the 1980s, strategic defense has become the most prominent and divisive security issue between the superpowers. The American Physical Society report was prepared and reviewed by some of the nation’s most prominent scientists who received full cooperation from the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization and the Department of Defense, including the use of classified materials. Some proponents of Star Wars reject the notion that strategic defense will either replace or reinforce deterrence but support the program as a means of developing important new “spin-off technologies” for commercial use, particularly in the fields of lasers, computers, particle beams, and space. Orbiting strategic defense structures are relatively easy targets to destroy by comparison to the weapons that they are intended to destroy and that might be used against them.
