The Common Sense of SDI

The defining feature of strategic discussion in the United States over the past two decades has been its systematic reversal of the normal rules of common sense. From the perspective of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD), which has been our reigning doctrine for this period, deployment of offensive weapons with enormous powers of destruction, capable of obliterating cities and their populations, is a welcome guarantee of peace; having defenses against such weapons is a bad and dangerous idea; threatening to kill tens of millions of Russians is preferable to saving tens of millions of Americans; and so on.

Axioms and conclusions spun off from this topsy-turvy mode of reasoning are pervasive in the critique of President Reagan’s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative and his performance at the Iceland Summit. For refusing to be trapped into giving away SDI and foreclosing forever the prospect of deploying homeland defenses, Reagan has been portrayed by the media (but not seen by the common-sensical public) as the bad guy. Specific criticisms of SDI itself and its supposedly negative impact on our relations with the Soviets are redolent of such inversions.

MS

About the Author

M. Stanton Evans

Featured Tags

The defining feature of strategic discussion in the United States over the past two decades has been its systematic reversal of the normal rules of common sense. From the perspective of “mutual assured destruction” (MAD), which has been our reigning doctrine for this period, deployment of offensive weapons with enormous powers of destruction, capable of obliterating cities and their populations, is a welcome guarantee of peace; having defenses against such weapons is a bad and dangerous idea; threatening to kill tens of millions of Russians is preferable to saving tens of millions of Americans; and so on.

Axioms and conclusions spun off from this topsy-turvy mode of reasoning are pervasive in the critique of President Reagan’s proposed Strategic Defense Initiative and his performance at the Iceland Summit. For refusing to be trapped into giving away SDI and foreclosing forever the prospect of deploying homeland defenses, Reagan has been portrayed by the media (but not seen by the common-sensical public) as the bad guy. Specific criticisms of SDI itself and its supposedly negative impact on our relations with the Soviets are redolent of such inversions.