"This paper suggests a framework that relates U.S. policies regarding the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and arms control to fundamental objectives of U.S. security--deterring aggression and limiting damage should deterrence fail. The paper argues that an "early deployment" of a nationwide ballistic missile defense is unnecessary and might undermine, rather than strengthen, U.S. security. The United States should consider deployment of such defenses only when it becomes clear that they could fundamentally improve U.S. security by assuring national survival in the event of a nuclear attack. Because the weight of evidence indicates that assured survival would be feasible only in cooperation with the Soviet Union, the paper concludes that the SDI depends on arms control to be viable as anything more than a modest research program."--Rand abstracts.

Following is an address by Paul H. Nitze, Special Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State on Arms Control Matters, before the Time Magazine Conference on SDI Strategic Defense initiative, Washington, D.C., June 3, 1986. The primary security objective of the United States is to reduce the risk of war while preserving our liberty and democratic political system. Over the past 25 years, the United States has pursued this objective through two related means. We have sought to deter war by maintaining a force structure adequate to convince potential adversaries that the risks and costs of aggression would far outweigh any possible gains. Simultaneously, we have sought to limit the nature and extent of the threat to the United States and to stabilize the strategic relationship with our principal adversary, the Soviet Union, through arms control agreements. The United States is now engaged in research to find out if new technologies could provide a more stable basis to deter war in the future by a shift to a greater reliance on strategic defenses. Arms control could also play an important role in designing a more stable strategic regime in the future. Tonight, I propose to examine the relationship among SDI, arms control, and stability. I hope to show that our SDI research and arms control policies, as currently defined, provide a cohesive and firm basis for enhancing strategic stability in the future and ultimately for reducing the risk of war.

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to develop a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system has both short-range and long-range risks as well as potential benefits. For the most part, however, strategic, technological, and political issues relevant to SDI have been analyzed in isolation from one another. This book provides a more inclusive framework for assessing the possible development and deployment of a BMD system by the United States or the Soviet Union. Contributors discuss the risks for arms race stability, probable reactions of the Soviet Union to any U.S. space-based defense system, and implications for the stability of extended deterrence commitments to NATO European allies. They also evaluate Soviet research and development programs in missile defense that must be considered in any extrapolation of the requirements for U.S. deterrence in the next several decades.