From Mutual Assured Destruction to Star Wars

Abstract: Caspar Weinberger served as U.S. president Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense from 1981 to 1987. In this video segment, Weinberger explains how deployment of the MX missile stopped the Soviet Union from believing it could successfully launch a first strike, which he feels is 'the essence of deterrence.' A better alternative to 'mutual assured destruction,' he argues, is the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Reagan administration's hotly contested proposal to design space-based weapons that could shoot down attacking missiles. In the interview he conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'Reagan's Shield,' Weinberger recalls coming into office only to discover that all three legs of the strategic triad-land, sea, and air systems-were obsolete. He argued for a dramatic increase in the U.S. nuclear-weapons arsenal, 'almost as if we had started from scratch,' and during his tenure he presided over trillion in military spending. Weinberger strongly advocated for the MX missile to replace the Minuteman missile, which had been the backbone of the U.S. land-based deterrent since the 1960s. Although the idea that existing Minutemen silos were vulnerable to a Soviet attack was a cornerstone of his and President Reagan's strategic policies, Weinberger explains that the decision to house the MX in those silos was a temporary measure to meet a 'critical deficiency.' Immediate MX deployment, Weinberger believed, would provide some insurance against the Soviet Union delivering a first strike with impunity. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration could persuade Congress to adopt a more survivable basing mode, such as the rail-based system. Reacting to the recommendations of the Scowcroft Commission, Weinberger was satisfied that it endorsed the president's modernization plan to close the 'window of vulnerability,' but he objected to the Midgetman mobile missile, proposed to placate MX opponents. He describes the compromise as an expensive missile that was only partially designed, added little deterrent value, and was popular principally because 'it was a missile we didn't have.'

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