Missile Defense Sponsors: Shifting Political Support For Strategic Defense After Reagan

Will Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative end up like previous initiatives in strategic defense? Will a very scaled- down version of the original design end up being deployed only to be abandoned a short while later? Or, will SDI break the cycle of floundering defenses against nuclear attack? Will the deployment of a limited national missile defense become the foundation of a more “robust” layered defense incorporating many basing modes? Through an analysis of the sponsors of missile defense and the contemporary political context this article asserts that the progeny of “Star Wars” is likely to break the pattern of deploy-and-abandon. Yet overt attempts to expand the scope of the current missile defense system will fracture the coalition of sponsors and be met with considerable opposition.