Did Reagan's Real Star Wars Bankrupt the Soviet Union ?

In the 1980s science fact and science fiction looked as though they may become one when the American president Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative or Star Wars missile defense system. The program was designed to break the nuclear deadlock between the u.s. and the Soviets and move beyond the threat of M.A.D or Mutually Assured Destruction but did the nuclear physicist Edward Teller over sell the idea to Ronald Reagan and only tell him what he wanted to hear. Even as the world reacted to America's new defense plan Tellers theories remained decades away from forming a working weapon. So how did just the threat of Star Wars change the world without it actually being put into action. By 1980 both the USA and the USSR had been stockpiling nuclear warheads for more than a quarter of a century, the Soviets having more than 30,000 from the US having over 20,000. The U.S. stockpile had actually decreased since the mid 1960s as new missiles were both more effective and more versatile nevertheless the superpowers were more than capable of obliterating each other many times over. It was President Ronald Reagan's dislike of the M.A.D policy which he called a "suicide pact" that drove him at his advisors to seek a new defense strategy. Their solution had to effectively remove the threat of total annihilation but also allow the holders of the technology, in this case the U.S. to use their weapons without fear of a devastating counter-attack Reagan. Had been searching for a new way forward for decades. In 1967 before he was elected the Governor of California he attended a lecture at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in which the hungarian-born scientist Edward Teller proposed using nuclear weapons to defend against a nuclear attack. Teller known as the "father of a h-bomb" was passionate about the capabilities of nuclear technology his famous enthusiasm even made it onto the big screen as one of the sources for the ex-nazi character in Stanley Kubrick's black comedy dr. Strangelove. but it was Tellers ideas for harnessing the power of nuclear explosions that would capture of reagan's imagination and plant the idea for the Strategic Defense Initiative. During a visit to NORAD in 1979 Reagan was told that whilst the US could find and track individual missiles during attack they could do nothing about it. Two years later Reagan was elected as the American presence and immediately set his advisors the task of devising a new concept initially a proposal called "High Frontier" was suggested a combination of ground-based ABM's or anti-ballistic missiles and a space-based laser system to shoot down the incoming Soviet ICBMs but High Frontier needed big advances in technology from a research project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This project codenamed "Excalibur" aimed to channel a controlled nuclear detonation in low-earth orbit into a battery of expendable x-ray lasers, these lasers had to be powerful enough to destroy incoming missiles in mid-flight before the warheads separated although testing in the 1970s have been unsuccessful, on November 14th 1980 scientists detonated a two kiloton nuclear device in a kilometer deep underground shaft that the Nevada Test Site and project Excalibur scored a success and the x-ray laser show promise. In the meeting where "High Frontier" was presented to Reagan he reportedly lit up with enthusiasm on hearing the details. Decades earlier the actor term president had himself starred in a b-movie about an airborne laser weapon in the wartime film "Murder in the air" On March 23rd 1983 President Reagan appeared before the world on television to announce the launch of the Strategic Defense Initiative. His speech made clear that the program aimed to be a technological game-changer. The Soviet reaction was outrage and condemnation according to the thinking that has led both sides to build up stockpiles of a offensive weapons, defensive initiatives were destabilizing as they threatened to shatter the existing balance of power. Reagan admitted as much in the words of his speech this was a bold move and a gamble. The Star Wars program was announced at a time when the USSR was already in turmoil at the top. Three Soviet leaders have died in less than three years, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. On hearing of Chernenko s death Reagan reportedly remarked "how am I supposed to get any place with a Russians if they keep dying on me". On March the 11th 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader chosen as part of a new generation keen to revive a stagnant economy. Once in office Gorbachev filled his cabinet with political allies who like him where reformists. The new Soviet administration inherited of raft of strained diplomatic situations including a proxy war in Afghanistan and the U.S. redeployment of medium-range missiles across Europe. In November 1983 Soviet representatives had walked out of arms control negotiations that year and only agreed to resume talks in 1984 if a treaty banning space weapons was on the agenda Gorbachev came to the bargaining table at the reykjavik Iceland summit in 1986 with an offer to shrink the Soviet offensive nuclear arsenal in exchange for cancellation of the Star Wars program. To avoid a new arms race and save his economy Gorbachev had to neutralize America's new technological initiative but even as he tried to negotiate a end to the arms race at home the Soviet defense industry was milking the opportunity to pursue their most ambitious programs. Priority was given to Buran, the equivalent of NASA's space shuttle and its launcher the giant Energia rocket. This launch system was conceived as a way to loft a range of weapons that could neutralize the American SDI satellites such as the carbon dioxide laser called SkiF. like Buran skif was symbolically important as it tested the idea that the Soviet Union could offer a symmetric response to Star Wars. Energia's first launch was scheduled to put skif into space from May 15th 1987 as part of the Polyus payload. Polyus was officially a science mission loaded with 10 experiments to carry out any upper atmosphere. Gorbachev himself visited the Baikonur cosmodrome before the launch to expressly forbid any deployment of a weapon that might be seen as an act of aggression by US surveillance. However in the end skif did even less when Gorbachev it expected. When the Energia rocket was launched and released polyus, a software error caused the payload to rotate too far facing backwards polyus fired its engines slowing to fall and breakup in the atmosphere Shortly afterwards. Although the Soviet space laser never made it into a stable orbit Reagan had successfully bluffed his opponent into developing and testing a symmetric response to a phantom threat. As the Polyus crashed to earth a major review of the american technology found that the space borne x-ray laser still faced huge challenges and remained out of reach. However by this time the US had effectively outmaneuvered the Soviet Union forcing them into an arms race they could not win. While the American economy enjoyed strong growth throughout the mid to late 1980s, Soviet productivity fell further and further behind. By 1989 the USSR was in a death spiral Gorbachev's reforms had resulted in a domino effect, the policy of glasnost or freedom of speech had led to public criticism of the fathers of a communist party, destabilizing the state's legitimacy. Gorbachev announcement of non-intervention in Eastern Europe resulted in Warsaw Pact countries calling democratic elections, then in 1991 the Baltic states ceded from the Soviet Union. In December of that year Gorbachev resigned and officially dissolved the USSR and the superpower but it kicked off the space race with Sputnik and had launched the first man into orbit was finished. So as always thanks for watching but before I go I just like to remind you about the curious droid merchandise store is now open and the curious droid Facebook group where you can suggest ideas for new videos is also available and finally you can now translate any of the curious droid videos if you're a non-native English speaker with the community contributions which we have a video on if you're unsure how to do it in the uploaded videos so once again thanks for watching and please subscribe write and share.

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 475,313

Rating: 4.9178729 out of 5

Keywords: star wars, reagans star wars, ronald reagan, edward teller, dr strangelove, sdi, Strategic Defence Initiative, Mutual Assured Destruction, mad, m.a.d, x ray laser, abm, high frontier, nuclear missile defence, soviet union, ussr, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NORAD, Father of the hydrogen bomb, anti-ballistic missiles, project excalibur, curious-droid.com, space, reagan, soviet, union, president, cold war, russian, gorbachev, nasa, Andy Munzer, paul shillito

Id: nL0pNvo-BKw

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2017