The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the “Star Wars program”, was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles). The concept was announced on March 23, 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a “suicide pact”. Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete.
The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. A wide array of advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, particle beam weapons and ground- and space-based missile systems were studied, along with various sensor, command and control, and high-performance computer systems that would be needed to control a system consisting of hundreds of combat centers and satellites spanning the entire globe and involved in a very short battle. The United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through decades of extensive research and testing; a number of these concepts and obtained technologies and insights were transferred to subsequent programs.
SDI was controversial in some sectors, and was criticized for threatening to destabilize the MAD-approach potentially rendering the Soviet nuclear arsenal useless and to possibly re-ignite “an offensive arms race”. Through declassified papers of American intelligence agencies the wider implications and effects of the program were examined and revealed that due to the potential neutralization of its arsenal and resulting loss of a balancing power factor, SDI was a cause of grave concern for the Soviet Union and her primary successor state Russia. By the early 1990s, with the Cold War ending and nuclear arsenals being rapidly reduced, political support for SDI collapsed. SDI officially ended in 1993, when the Clinton Administration redirected the efforts towards theatre ballistic missiles and renamed the agency the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO).
As indicated by the file below, approximately 600 pages were referred out from the FBI to the Department of Defense. This page will be updated when those pages are released.
There were other pages released by the FBI, however, and those are available below.
Follow The Black Vault on Social Media:
This post was published on October 15, 2021 1:10 pm
The FBI’s file on late-night radio host Art Bell has expanded with the release of…
On December 17, 2022, a Cessna 172 pilot approaching Tucson, Arizona, reported an unusual airborne…
The FBI has released a detailed set of investigative files on the so-called “Jetpack Man”…
The Department of Defense (DoD) has denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking…
Newly obtained Secret Service records continue to shed light on the numerous biting incidents involving…
The Department of Defense (DoD) has released a set of heavily redacted emails in response…