As with other presidents Reagan passed through the initiation ceremony known as ‘the briefing on the SIOP’.3 It was framed in terms of launch procedures and the target sets against which weapons could be launched. It gave a terrible, practical reality to the familiar clichés of nuclear war. As Reagan explored its meaning he became even more uncomfortable with the implications of the war plans, notably the fact that in the imagined war some 150 million Americans would die. He also resisted the assumption that he would be whisked away from the White House when there was any risk of being caught by a Soviet strike, something Reagan saw as an abdication of his responsibility. As his aides reflected on the experience of including the President in an actual war game, the issue of how to ensure that command and control was maintained during a war was thrown into sharper relief. The confusion that followed the attempted assassination of Reagan (which was almost successful) a few weeks into his presidency underlined the importance of the issue. The more consideration given to extended nuclear operations the more the demands on the infrastructure appeared to be impossible to meet. It was hard to have confidence that far into a nuclear war anyone with authority and capacity would be in a position to appreciate what was going on and what might be done.My dream … became a world free of nuclear weapons. Some of my advisers, including a number at the Pentagon did not share this dream … They tossed around macabre jargon about “throw weights” and “kill ratios” as if they were talking about baseball scores … But for the eight years as president I never let my dream of a nuclear free world fade from my mind.2
All this helped explain why Reagan was so keen to find an alternative way to deal with the problem. In a Presidential broadcast on 23 March 1983, a month before the release of the Scowcroft Commission’s report on the MX missile, President Reagan announced what became officially known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and what was almost immediately dubbed as ‘star wars’ by the media. This shift from an almost exclusive focus on strategic offense to one that increasingly stressed the importance of strategic defence can be attributed to several overlapping developments. The growing public support for an anti-nuclear position, epitomised by the nuclear freeze movement and the activism of the Catholic bishops, had made an impact on the administration’s ability to maintain support for its hard line policies. Added to this was the ongoing problem of MX basing.
The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral James D. Watkins, himself a devout Catholic, believed that with declining public support for the national deterrent based on offensive weapons systems, and no satisfactory solution to the MX basing problem likely to be imminently forthcoming, a new approach was required. Within the Pentagon he initiated the development of an alternative vision of a long-term shift in strategy that would emphasise defensive systems instead of offensive ones. Central to this shift was the idea that the lack of serious attention to strategic defences since the ABM Treaty meant that the potential role of new technologies had not been fully appreciated. Watkins was particularly impressed with a discussion he had with the veteran nuclear physicist Edward Teller on this point. In preparation for a meeting with Reagan in February 1983, Watkins was able to persuade the other members of the Joint Chiefs that they should take strategic defence seriously.
The idea immediately appealed to Reagan. Apart from sensing an opportunity to outflank the nuclear freeze movement and move beyond the MX basing decision, it also fitted in with his anti-nuclear sentiments. Appropriating the language from an earlier Navy briefing prepared for the Joint Chiefs, Reagan rhetorically asked in his March 1983 national address, ‘wouldn’t it be better to save lives rather than avenge them’. The vision Reagan outlined was simply that—a vision—and devoid of any specifics. Largely due to the lack of technological detail that would call into question the feasibility of the project, as well as the wider negative effects the speech was expected to have on both allies and the Soviet Union, Reagan’s advisers unsuccessfully attempted to tone it down. He raised expectations of a total defence against nuclear attack without acknowledging that a missile defence system would not offer protection against cruise missiles, bombers, and other means of nuclear delivery. As things turned out the logic of his rationale for strategic defences led naturally into nuclear disarmament.
Whereas Reagan envisioned a ‘magic shield’ or ‘astrodome’ defence that would protect the American population, technological realities prevented this. Instead, its potential would eventually be reduced to a focus on defence against accidental launches. Enthusiasm for the project declined over time, especially within the military. There was little interest during Reagan’s second term, as the defence budget declined in real terms, to take money away from traditional service priorities to spend on missile defence. Nevertheless, in the short term, the future prospect of a missile shield held tangible benefits. Some advisers hoped to persuade Reagan to use SDI as a bargaining chip in arms control negotiations. More hard-line advisers saw an opportunity to use SDI to sabotage arms control and hoped it would undermine the ABM Treaty. Others viewed SDI as a means of protecting America’s offensive nuclear arsenal and therefore believed it would enhance deterrence.
There was always a disjunction between Reagan’s idealistic rhetoric and the Initiative’s practical expression and political complexities.4 The attempt by SDI’s friends to rescue it from the laws of physics, the obligations of treaties, the scepticism of Congress and the anxieties of allies by turning it into something more mundane could not but trivialize the President’s message.5 He was not attempting a new move in the prolonged game of nuclear deterrence but seeking to terminate the game. The objective was not to protect vital military assets but society itself. The establishment view was to use SDI to enhance deterrence, whereas Reagan hoped to transcend it.6 So despite attempts by his subordinates who were actually running SDI to recast the presidential vision into a feasible project Reagan sought a Great Escape from the nuclear dilemma. There was to be a switch from mutual assured destruction to mutual assured survival, its mutuality made possible by an out-of-character promise to share the critical secrets of the Great Escape with the Soviet Union.
Even in its more mundane form SDI faced serious problems. It was a project for several Presidents and Congresses and was never likely to sustain its appeal for sufficient time. The critics found the President’s extreme formulation almost irresistible and they set about demolishing it with enthusiasm.7 The scientific community argued against SDI in similar terms to those used in the late 1960s and early 1970s against the Sentinel and Safeguard anti-ballistic missiles. The terms of the debate were set by some of the first books.8 Meanwhile, allies and other supporters of traditional nuclear deterrence were appalled at the implications of the nuclear-free rhetoric surrounding SDI.9
The proponents hoped that scientific breakthroughs would provide the necessary momentum but the problem to be cracked was strategic rather than technical. It was not the same as landing men on the moon because the moon was not attempting to repel boarders and counter-attack.10 From early on, analyses of SDI’s prospects suggested that it could never come to fruition without the active connivance of the Soviet Union. If Moscow sought to defeat the Initiative it could—simply through the proliferation of missile warheads or a move towards alternative forms of delivery to ballistic missiles. Unless it were possible to ensure that the cost of future offences would be greater than the defences designed to stop them, SDI would be little more than a recipe for a sustained arms race. One of the key criteria for the eventual deployment of SDI as set down by Paul Nitze was that ‘they must be cheap enough to add additional defensive capability so that the other side has no incentive to add additional offensive capability to overcome the defense’. The other criterion was that the key components of the defence should be ‘survivable’.11 While Soviet hostility to the project gave its proponents hope that there must be some merit in something which so alarmed the adversary, it also meant that there was little chance of a co-operative transition to a defence-dominated world.
President Reagan took the initiative, but the time-scale for implementation had to be measured in decades rather than years. In the face of technical doubts and worries over cost, the programme could only be sustained with serious Presidential commitment. A move towards early deployment of an ‘intermediate’ system, capable of dealing with limited threats and demonstrating some of the new technologies was canvassed before the end of the Reagan Administration, but by 1988 the impact of budget cuts meant that the Initiative was rapidly losing both its lustre and its credibility. Thus the Reagan legacy in the area of strategic defence would be the output of a substantial research effort but not a developing programme with a momentum of its own.
From the start the future of SDI was bound up with the future of arms control. So long as the 1972 ABM Treaty was honoured then SDI could not get very far. Initially the logical course appeared to be for the Administration to ditch the treaty altogether, using as a pretext an unusually clear case of a Soviet violation with the building of a phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk, a location prohibited under the terms of the Treaty.12 However, the Administration sought to promote SDI without abandoning the Treaty by means of an attempt to reinterpret it. Up to 1985 the only, and thereafter known as ‘narrow’, interpretation of the Treaty, was that anything other than research on ballistic missile defences (except for fixed land-based systems) was prohibited. The interpretation favoured by the Administration would allow development and testing to proceed on strategic defences based on ‘new physical principles’.13 This failed to impress Congress and again left the future of SDI uncertain.
The Soviet leadership was hostile even to SDI research and linked various arms control proposals to abandonment of the Initiative. This effort backfired in that it gave more credibility to SDI than was deserved. As SDI seemed to worry Moscow so much, it was at least perceived to have some utility. By 1987 the Soviet assessment of SDI appeared to be much more relaxed so long as the basic framework of the ABM Treaty remained intact. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had been obliged to recognize that Reagan would not be denied his ‘vision’ of freedom from nuclear threats, but could be confident that this particular vision would not become reality, at least not by means of SDI.
The last option for an escape from mutual assured destruction was arms control. As the excitement surrounding SDI subsided it became apparent that radical arms control offered a more plausible means of meeting many of the same objectives. As the elusiveness of a technical fix to the nuclear dilemma was rediscovered a political fix started to look much more likely.
The last years of the Reagan Administration were dominated by an attempt to put in place a comprehensive nuclear arms control regime. In December 1987 a treaty eliminating intermediate nuclear forces was signed and was even ratified by the US Senate. Substantial progress was made towards a strategic arms reductions treaty that would lead to reductions of some 25 to 30 per cent (50 per cent on the Administration’s count) in offensive warheads. All this was done within a framework which accepted the long-term goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. This conclusion to the Reagan Administration was all the more surprising given that it had appeared initially hostile to arms control, arguing that the exercise had lost credibility because of the unacceptable nature of the Soviet Union as a partner in negotiations.
From the start the Administration was arguing for a much more radical approach to arms control. The radicalism took two forms. First, because it was convinced that the Soviet Union had a high propensity to cheat (and a number of allegations were made to this effect14) it wanted intrusive verification procedures. The only sanction that was ever taken against the alleged cheating was to cease to recognize the SALT II limits in the summer of 1986. However, the fact that the Administration had observed for as long as it did the terms of a Treaty that candidate Reagan had described in 1980 as being ‘fatally flawed’ was in itself remarkable.
The second element of radicalism was to argue for reduction rather than limitation. Along with many liberals, the conservatives claimed that a collection of permissive ceilings which confirmed the status quo was wholly unsatisfactory. To their critique was added the thought that when the status quo favoured the Soviet Union it was not at all surprising that it was so interested in consolidating its advantages. From the start of the Administration there was a rhetorical willingness to contemplate substantial nuclear disarmament. It was difficult to assess how seriously this should be taken. It was part of the tendency towards absolute standards, against which arms control and strategic doctrine were both judged. If arms control could not produce deep cuts then it was of little value, while if doctrinal innovation could not produce a formula for victory it too was deficient. As the Administration progressed the initial optimism with regard to meeting the absolute standards set for nuclear doctrine was shown to be unwarranted, while the pessimism on arms control subsided.
The Administration claimed that progress on arms control was a result of sticking to firm principles and holding out until they were met. A readiness to improve America’s military strength created a proper bargaining position where there had been none before. This argument has to be examined with care. The sort of radical arms control deals considered in the strategic arms area only became possible because one jewel in the Administration’s crown, namely MX, was in serious trouble and so no longer needed to be protected, and then was held up because the other jewel, SDI, had to be protected. The most dramatic breakthroughs were made in the area of intermediate nuclear forces, where the initial programme had been approved under the Carter Administration.
The INF programme was initially developed as a means of meeting the nuclear dilemma by providing a degree of reassurance to Western Europe as to the quality of the American nuclear commitment. Many in the Reagan Administration were critical of the programme because of the vulnerability of land-based systems and because they did not accept that it was necessary to reassure Europeans by local basing. If some tangible American nuclear superiority could be created then that would be superiority enough. In this respect it was not wholly correct to describe the ‘zero option’ of November 1981 offered by the Administration to the Soviet Union as a cynical political move designed to wrong-foot both the Soviet Union and the disarmament movement, who were somewhat nonplussed to have their own proposal taken up by the Americans. Nonetheless, there was no expectation that anything could come of it. It required the Soviet Union to give up a substantial force already deployed in return for one that was still on paper and might yet be stopped by domestic political action.15
Politically it was undoubtedly effective, for there was an obvious symmetry in the proposal. Soviet attempts to construct a balance that they could argue was being disrupted by the new American missiles could appear by contrast to be cynical and self-serving. Gradually, in an effort to demonstrate reasonableness the Reagan Administration allowed itself to be eased away from the zero solution in early 1983, in the process pushing to one side what orthodox NATO circles considered to be a doctrinal heresy. The Soviet Union further obliged by walking out of the Geneva talks in late 1983 as the first Pershing and cruise missiles arrived. Perhaps the objective was to create a NATO crisis over arms control, but NATO was perfectly happy that the Soviet Union had cast itself in the role of spoiler. The only crisis was in Soviet diplomacy. Once it became clear that the walk-out was a failure and that Reagan was to be re-elected the Soviet return to arms control began (each of these factors was far more important than SDI). What was critical was that the return was with a new leadership.