Promise Or Peril, the Strategic Defense Initiative: Thirty-five Essays by Statesmen, Scholars, and Strategic Analysts Zbigniew Brzezinski The major policy debate touched off by President Reagan's March 1983 speech announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was the reopening of one that had begun 35 years before. Then and now the ultimate question is what kind of strategic posture is most likely to contribute to mutual strategic stability? The answer is central to national survival and has profound ethical implications. A strategic posture that safeguards peace by the threat of annihilation, one that bases national defense on the threat of killing scores of millions of people, is ethically troubling, morally corrosive, and dehumanizing. This volume of 35 essays by statesmen, scholars, and strategic analysts seeks to give the reader a comprehensive picture of the key issues surrounding strategic defense. Part 1 traces the historical antecedents of today's debate over strategic defense. Part 2 provides a spectrum of views on whether a strategic defense system is technically feasible and strategically advisable. Part 3 documents the complete transformation of the Soviet Union's public position on strategic defense, while showing that its programs to develop such weapons systems have been unaffected by that reversal. Part 4 examines the implications of strategic defense for the Western alliance. Part 5 presents the debate about whether SDI enhances or diminishes the prospect for verifiable arms control. And Part 6 looks at moral aspects of strategic defense. Also included are an appendix with the text of the 1972 ABM treaty, a chronology relating technological, political, and strategic developments from the 1930s to the present, a glossary of terms used in the book, a bibliography, and an index of names. (BZ) |
