Strategic Defense Initiative (eBook)

Ronald Reagan, NATO Europe, and the Nuclear and Space Talks, 1981-1988

Ralph L. Dietl (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
202 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-6566-0 (ISBN)

Infos

This study examines the Strategic Defense Initiative and arms control policies during the Reagan administration. The author analyzes the origins and development of the program, the technological challenges it presented to the strategic community, and how it affected relations with NATO allies and the Soviet Union.

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The Nuclear and Space Talks revolutionized arms control. The Cold War endgame commenced with the umbrella negotiations' that linked START and INF negotiations to a regulation on the weaponization of space. This volume reveals a US grand strategy to replace deterrence with a collective security order. An entente of the superpowers was needed to transform bipolarity. The US planned the replacement of mutually assured destruction by mutually assured security. A global astrodome was to protect a nuclear disarmed world. The Franco-German special relationship in European affairs had to be amended by a US-SU special relationship to replace classic bloc politics. The Reagan Administration planned a global zero agenda, a joint development of a global protective system and a creation of a Common House of Europe. In brief, the superpowers prepared 'the velvet revolution' that eliminated the Cold War structures. Neither containment nor convergence offers a valid explanation of the Cold War endgame. Co-creation is the key to decipher the end of the Cold War. NATO Europe challenged the transformation of bipolarity. The European NWS resisted to a multilateralization of strategic arms control. In Europe the classic Cold War thinking survived the fall of the Iron Curtain. European conservatism contributed to the geopolitical catastrophe of the first order: the downfall of the Soviet Union.The Reagan Administration developed a Grand Strategy to end the Cold War. The US-SU co-creation of an astrodome was meant to ease a global zero agenda. A global collective security structure under the United Nations was to replace deterrence. The superpower project collapsed due to the penetration of US decision-making by NATO Allies. The European NWS totally objected to a multilateralization of strategic arms control to preserve their relative position in the international system.

Autor

Ralph L. Dietl is senior lecturer in international and European history at Queen's University Belfast.

Inhalt

Chapter 1: The Genesis of the SDI Project, 1981–83Chapter 2: The Return from the Abyss: The Evolution of the Nuclear and Space TalksChapter 3: SDI: The Conceptual BattleChapter 4: SDI: Implementation versus AbrogationChapter 5: Cold Storage: The Delinking of the Nuclear and Space TalksConclusion: The SDI and the Cold War Endgame

Produkt-Details

• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
• Schlagworte: arms control • COLD WAR HISTORY • NATO • Reagan Administration • Ronald Reagan • SDI • Strategic Defense Initiative • strategic studies
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-6566-2 / 1498565662
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-6566-0 / 9781498565660