In 1983, the still "new" President Ronald Reagan announced an innovative change in our entire defense strategy, a program labeled the "Strategic Defense Initiative," and known simply as SDI. But that name would not stand alone for long.
Because what Reagan wanted to do was to develop a defensive shield against nuclear missiles. And, by God, that was just too threatening to the status quo, to the way things were usually being done to keep the peace concerning the obviously sensitive subject of nuclear bombs and the two great super powers, the United States and Russia, who had the lion's share of those devices.
Right up until Reagan's proposal for a missile shield, the tacit understanding of nuclear defense was all caught up in something called "MAD" -- "mutual assured destruction" -- which assumed that no one would launch a nuclear first strike because the other side would respond in kind, resulting in the utter destruction of both sides. No one was supposed to suggest any other way of keeping the peace.
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