The Strategic Defense Initiative: Ronald Reagan, NATO Europe, and the Nuclear and Space Talks, 1981-1988

The Strategic Defense Initiative: Ronald Reagan, NATO Europe, and the Nuclear and Space Talks, 1981-1988

by Ralph L. Dietl
The Strategic Defense Initiative: Ronald Reagan, NATO Europe, and the Nuclear and Space Talks, 1981-1988

The Strategic Defense Initiative: Ronald Reagan, NATO Europe, and the Nuclear and Space Talks, 1981-1988

by Ralph L. Dietl

Hardcover

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Overview

The Nuclear and Space Talks revolutionized arms control. The Cold War endgame commenced with the umbrella negotiations’ that linked START and INF negotiations to a regulation on the weaponization of space. This volume reveals a US grand strategy to replace deterrence with a collective security order. An entente of the superpowers was needed to transform bipolarity. The US planned the replacement of mutually assured destruction by mutually assured security. A global astrodome was to protect a nuclear disarmed world. The Franco-German special relationship in European affairs had to be amended by a US-SU special relationship to replace classic bloc politics. The Reagan Administration planned a global zero agenda, a joint development of a global protective system and a creation of a Common House of Europe. In brief, the superpowers prepared ‘the velvet revolution’ that eliminated the Cold War structures. Neither containment nor convergence offers a valid explanation of the Cold War endgame. Co-creation is the key to decipher the end of the Cold War. NATO Europe challenged the transformation of bipolarity. The European NWS resisted to a multilateralization of strategic arms control. In Europe the classic Cold War thinking survived the fall of the Iron Curtain. European conservatism contributed to the geopolitical catastrophe of the first order: the downfall of the Soviet Union.

The Reagan Administration developed a Grand Strategy to end the Cold War. The US-SU co-creation of an astrodome was meant to ease a global zero agenda. A global collective security structure under the United Nations was to replace deterrence. The superpower project collapsed due to the penetration of US decision-making by NATO Allies. The European NWS totally objected to a multilateralization of strategic arms control to preserve their relative position in the international system.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781498565653
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication date: 08/15/2018
Pages: 202
Product dimensions: 6.36(w) x 8.96(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Ralph L. Dietl is senior lecturer in international and European history at Queen's University Belfast.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Genesis of the SDI Project, 1981–83
Chapter 2: The Return from the Abyss: The Evolution of the Nuclear and Space Talks
Chapter 3: SDI: The Conceptual Battle
Chapter 4: SDI: Implementation versus Abrogation
Chapter 5: Cold Storage: The Delinking of the Nuclear and Space Talks
Conclusion: The SDI and the Cold War Endgame
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