Even as a governor, Reagan dreamed of shielding America from nuclear attack. Backing him were figures like retired Lt General Daniel O. Graham, an adviser to Reagan’s campaigns in 1976 and 1980, who envisioned unmanned space vehicles firing projectiles that could destroy Soviet missiles, and physicist Edward Teller, the renowned Hungarian American physicist known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb,” who dreamed a constellation of nuclear-powered X-ray lasers safeguarding America from space. An outlandish idea, at the time as the X-ray laser was still in the research phase.
In 1981, these two men set up an organisation called High Frontier to advocate for greater spending on missile defence. The High Frontier found its home in the well-known Heritage Foundation and received financial support from members of the Kitchen Cabinet. (a group of private and unofficial allies and friends, mainly from California that allies and friends who advised Reagan during his terms).
But the U.S. Air Force saw things differently. After studying the plan, it dismissed it as “unrealistic” and lacking “technical merit.” That didn’t stop Reagan. On March 23, 1983, at the end of a televised speech from the Oval Office, devoted to his defence build-up, Reagan made a grandiose announcement: “My fellow Americans, tonight we’re launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of the human history.” The project became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
The reaction? Global alarm.
Even America’s closest allies opposed the project. Margaret Thatcher worried that SDI would either fail or, if successful, render the British nuclear project obsolete. In the meantime, the SDI speech, which was delivered a few weeks after the famous 'evil empire,' speech heightened Soviet paranoia.
At the time, nuclear deterrence relied on Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)— the idea that neither side would launch a nuclear strike because it would result in total annihilation. But If the SDI worked, the U.S. could theoretically neutralise the Soviet nuclear threat, making MAD obsolete. This threatened the very foundation of Soviet strategic security.
The result? An arms race on steroids. Some historians even argue that SDI was a contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it intensified the economic and military pressures that led to the end of the Cold War.