The Protracted Conflict: The ‘Star Wars’ Debate

The authors of the catchphrases that dominate the media (and therefore our superficial thoughts and cocktail talk) are usually anonymous, although proud claimants to a word coinage have been known to surface. In the realm of weaponry, sad to say, the catchphrases are usually pejorative in an anti-Western direction.

So it was with the so-called neutron bomb (enhanced radiation/diminished blast warhead), which wasn’t a bomb at all. So it is with “Star Wars,” the favorable euphemism for which is High Frontier—or, more formally, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The latter has a reassuring ring to it, but is not exactly explicit as a description.

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Brian Crozier

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The authors of the catchphrases that dominate the media (and therefore our superficial thoughts and cocktail talk) are usually anonymous, although proud claimants to a word coinage have been known to surface. In the realm of weaponry, sad to say, the catchphrases are usually pejorative in an anti-Western direction.

So it was with the so-called neutron bomb (enhanced radiation/diminished blast warhead), which wasn’t a bomb at all. So it is with “Star Wars,” the favorable euphemism for which is High Frontier—or, more formally, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The latter has a reassuring ring to it, but is not exactly explicit as a description.