Ronald Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative

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Strategic Defense Initiative
Ronald Reagan mocked the Soviet Union and proposed an idea that forced the Soviets to become less aggressive during the Cold War. The idea Reagan proposed sounded like it came out of a movie, which gave the project the nickname, the Star Wars program. Tension between the United States and the Soviet Union grew after President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire'. As the tension began to grow, the Soviets began to produce ballistic missiles to use against the United States. Reagan said that the United States should build an anti-missile system in space to protect Americans from the Soviet missile attacks. The project had a projected cost up to $1 trillion so funding was cut at the end of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan proposing the strategic defense initiative was a significant event in American history because it scared the Soviets giving the United States more power and made the Soviet Union reduced their nuclear weapons by 50%.
Before the strategic defense initiative, or SDI, was proposed, there were many factors that led up to Ronald Reagan's idea. In 1949, the Soviet Union created their first nuclear bomb. After these deadly weapons were created, airplanes were the primary way to deliver the missiles. This was up until the late 1960s when the form of rocketry was introduced. As the Soviet Union and United States continued to hate each other, both President Eisenhower and President Nixon created ways to defend the United States from Soviet bombs. By 1972 the United States and Soviet Union signed the anti-ballistic missile Treaty, or ABM treaty. The ABM treaty "forbid the testing and deployment of ballistic missile defenses, deflected**** and codified this recognition of offensive su...

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...d to say about the soviets. In 1983 the world was shocked when they heard about Ronald Reagan's idea. The thought it was something that you see movies and cannot be done. In 1984 the funding for the multibillion-dollar project began. The Soviets could not politically and financially keep up with United States and were forced to reduce their missiles the 50%. Also, the idea of the defense system influenced other presidents and gave them the idea of how America could better be protected. This event still impacts the United States today because the idea is still being used for protection against enemy countries missile attacks. President Barack Obama used this idea by proposing a defense system in the Czech Republic to guarding against Iran. The strategic defense initiative could have very well saved the United States and Soviet Union from a nuclear war in the 1980s.

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