The Second Cold War and the Threat of SDI, 1980–5

Abstract

During the early 1980s the Soviet Union lacked effective political leadership, particularly in the area of security. The rapid succession of three seriously ill General Secretaries meant that any policy initiatives were sporadic and inconsistent. Leonid Brezhnev was capable of very little in the last few years of his life. Although Yuri Andropov had his own policy agenda, his attention was focussed primarily on reform in domestic politics, and even there he had little time before his failing health prevented him from acting on his intentions. Konstantin Chernenko’s brief regime represented an attempt to preserve the status quo ante as far as possible. As the political leadership grew weaker, the armed forces became more prominent in security policy, but in contrast to the mid 1950s, this combination did not result in a vigorous ABM programme. By the time that the Americans were once again posing a serious technological challenge in the shape of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the Soviet military was seriously divided on the issue of missile defences. The discussion of SDI in the Soviet press reveals not only the extent of Soviet alarm about many aspects of the American project, but also the absence of a policy or even a consensus about how the USSR should respond to it.