The SDI and European security interests

Book · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6301790

Deschamps, L

This paper examines Europe's reactions to President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). On the one hand, the American proposals have inspired forceful European opposition of a kind potentially damaging to Alliance solidarity. On the other, paradoxically, the debate occurred in a period of rare Alliance harmony, when the deployment of cruise and Pershing II missiles was satisfactorily completed despite Soviet hostility. Yet the nature of the discussion and the compromises reached between Europe and the United States on the SDI have meant that a true strategic debate has not yet begun. Although the SDI is largely an American response to an American strategic problem, Europeans are intimately affected by many of its implications. The author argues that if the SDI program is not to cause great difficulties in the future a more sophisticated discussion of the purposes of strategic defense must now be undertaken. Contents. Introduction; defense in the nuclear age; defense or deterrence: The limits of western consensus; the Euro-American debate on the SDI; European concerns and American responses; and conclusion.

• OSTI ID: 6301790
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290200 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Economics & Sociology
290600* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Nuclear Energy
293000 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Policy
Legislation
& Regulation
AGREEMENTS
BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE
COOPERATION
EUROPE
FOREIGN POLICY
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
MILITARY STRATEGY
NATIONAL DEFENSE
NATIONAL SECURITY
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
POLITICAL ASPECTS
PROLIFERATION
SECURITY
WEAPONS
WESTERN EUROPE