4. “Tear down this Wall”
Under the assumption that
the Soviet Union could
not outspend the U.S.
government in a renewed
arms race, Reagan used
words and money to
escalate the Cold War.
5.
6. The Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI), commonly called “Star
Wars” after the popular science
fiction movies, was a system
proposed by President Ronald
Reagan on March 23, 1983.
7. Strategic Defense Initiative
SDI would use ground-based and space-based
systems to protect the United States from attack
by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.
8. The Death of Détente
The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the previous
strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction.
10. The Death of Détente
• Though it was never fully
implemented, the
research and
technologies of SDI
paved the way for the
Anti-ballistic missile
systems of today.
• The technology required
to implement SDI is still
being researched in the
U.S., and it is currently
in testing with stations in
Alaska and islands in the
Pacific Ocean.