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Article: Strategic Defense Initiative
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE
STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE
(SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a research project to create a missile defense system that would protect the United States from nuclear attack. Begun by the administration of Ronald Reagan, few military programs have been the subject of more intense, even emotional, debate than have SDI and its successors.
By the late 1960s, the primary means that the United States and the Soviet Union had of directly attacking the other was with nuclear weapons delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Despite experimentation by both sides with nuclear-tipped defensive missiles, the difficulties of "hitting a bullet with a ...