Publications

Directed Energy And The Future Of Missile Defense

August 19, 2013 Richard M. Harrison Journal for International Security Affairs

In the March 23, 1983, address that formally unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), President Ronald Reagan famously outlined a vision that challenged the “balance of terror” that governed relations between the U.S. and USSR. Reagan proposed an alternative to continuing to live with the imminent threat of thermonuclear war: the development and deployment of defensive capabilities able to eliminate nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.