Explain How The Reagan Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative Heightened Cold War Tensions
a.) Explain how the Reagan Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative heightened Cold War tensions.
Soviet intelligence services went on watchful in 1981 to observe for US preparations for initiating a shocking nuclear hit against the USSR and it allies. This warning was escorted by a new Soviet intelligence collection program, known by the acronym RYAN, to observe signals and provide early warning of US target. Two years later a major war scare exploded in the USSR and this study traces the beginning and capacity of Operation RYAN, its relationship to the war scare and Reagan administration's strategic defense initiative (SDI) heightened Cold War tensions.
In 1983, from disagreement in the beginning of postwar decades, to détente in the late 1960's and 1970's and back to disagreement in the early 1980's, US-Soviet relations had come full circle. Outbreak of "Cold War II" was declared by the Europeans. This situation was compared to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1948 face-off Berlin by the French President Francois Mitterrand. George Kennan, (from the doyen of Soviet-spy), exclaimed that the new superpower mess had the "familiar characteristic, the unfailing characteristic of a march toward war, and nothing else". Such fears were overstated; that even during this time of heightened tension, it is impossible in this world were …show more content…
the superpowers squared off in a crisis likely to escalate into full-scale nuclear war.
However, a typical day for Rip Van Winkle waking up in 1983 would have remembered little if any progression in the international political climate and he would not have realized that a considerable period of détente had appear and left while he slept. It is obvious to say that the post-détente "second Cold War" was in essence a war of words which meant to be solid and at times stirring words.
In March 1983, President Reagan accuse the Soviet Union as the "center of evil in the world" and as an "evil kingdom". In rebuttal, Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov stated that the U.S. President is insane and a liar. Due to this result, conflicts grew and things became nasty. Moscow continually indicted President Reagan of admiring the heat of war and compared him to Hitler. Such overstatement was more of a result than a cause of tension, but it masked real fears. However, the Hitler comparison was more than a symbolic surplus, but rather a firm thought decision in the mind of the Soviet leaders. Moscow was in the center of a war scare that had two discrete stages: a largely concealed that started in 1981 and a more visible that occurred two years later.
Late in the Carter administration and following the first years of the Reagan administrations, the United States had started playing catch-up. To some observers, it started to appear that Marxist gains in the 1970's in such places as Indochina, Angola, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua had owed more to US divisions, diversions, and defeats than to Soviet power and influence. Now it become visible that Moscow had not really gained very much from its foreign adventures.
In an even more ultimate turnaround for the Soviet Union, US public judgment, disenchanted with détente and arms control, was now behind the largest peacetime defense increased in the nation's history.
For the most part, these movements began under President Carter and hasten under President Reagan. Moreover, the Carter administration began invigorating CIA secret action against the USSR. In addition to hasten the US military increase, President Reagan prolonged programs launched under his precursor to support human rights activists in the USSR, Poland, and the mujahedin in Afghanistan. In Western Europe, where the Kremlin had spent a long history of trying to gain friends and persuade people with its peace and detente policies, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany favored installing new US missiles to counter Soviet SS-20's aimed at his country and other NATO allies.
In March 1981, after President Reagan authorized to operate the psychological warfare operations (PSYOP) program and implement it near maritime moving towards to the USSR (where no man had ever been before), according to published accounts, the US Navy participated in this key role. In 1981 and 1983, navy movements performed near the far northern and eastern regions of the Soviet Union, which confirmed US the ability to position aircraft carrier battle groups close to sensitive military and industrial site without being notice or challenged early on. This implementation apparently incorporated secret operations that simulated surprise naval air attacks on Soviet targets.
When Reagan administration officials first discovered of RYAN, they allegedly illustrated a correlation between the US-led military probes and the Soviet warning, noticing that the Soviets were gradually more terrified. While Moscow seemingly taking account of the tit-for-tat nature of the US military operations and did not draw hard-and-fast assumption as to what these operations might foretell about purpose, it could not ignore either their insinuation for a shocking attack scenario or the gaps they exposed in the USSR's technical early warning systems.
In spite of their private matters, Soviet leaders preserved a public attitude of relative peaceful during 1981-1982. Even President Reagan's first Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, later gave Moscow credit stating that "the Soviets stayed very moderate, responsible during the first three years of this administration. I was mind-boggled with their patience". However, the endurance wore off in 1983.
On March 23, 1983, President Reagan broadcasted the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), promptly hail as "Star Wars" by the media. SDI was a set up for a ground and spaced-based, laser-armed antiballistic missile system that, if set out it would generate a protection for US land-based missiles. However, four days after the broadcasting by the President and in direct response, Andropov spoke out by accusing the United States of organizing a first- hit assail on the Soviet Union and declared that President Reagan was formulating new plans on how to set free a nuclear war in the best method, with the expectation of succeeding it".
(Conclusion)
The worries that provoked Operation RYAN seemed real, even if overstated.
The warning was a collide agenda to generate a planned caution system in reaction to new challenges that the Soviets observed as alarming on the horizon. The reaction was frightened but not unreasonable. One unknown historian, rejecting the paranoia thesis that has often been used to explain Russian reaction to technologically superior Western military power, captured the point when he wrote "at various times, Russian strategist were acutely fearful. But those fears, although at times extreme, were scarcely insane" (Time magazine's "Man of Year",
1983) Reference:
Fischer, B.B. (1997). A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare. Retrieved
August 10, 2006 from Google on the World Wide Web:
https://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/coldwar/source.htm#HEADING1-17
Soviet intelligence services went on watchful in 1981 to observe for US preparations for initiating a shocking nuclear hit against the USSR and it allies. This warning was escorted by a new Soviet intelligence collection program, known by the acronym RYAN, to observe signals and provide early warning of US target. Two years later a major war scare exploded in the USSR and this study traces the beginning and capacity of Operation RYAN, its relationship to the war scare and Reagan administration's strategic defense initiative (SDI) heightened Cold War tensions.
In 1983, from disagreement in the beginning of postwar decades, to détente in the late 1960's and 1970's and back to disagreement in the early 1980's, US-Soviet relations had come full circle. Outbreak of "Cold War II" was declared by the Europeans. This situation was compared to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the 1948 face-off Berlin by the French President Francois Mitterrand. George Kennan, (from the doyen of Soviet-spy), exclaimed that the new superpower mess had the "familiar characteristic, the unfailing characteristic of a march toward war, and nothing else". Such fears were overstated; that even during this time of heightened tension, it is impossible in this world were …show more content…
the superpowers squared off in a crisis likely to escalate into full-scale nuclear war.
However, a typical day for Rip Van Winkle waking up in 1983 would have remembered little if any progression in the international political climate and he would not have realized that a considerable period of détente had appear and left while he slept. It is obvious to say that the post-détente "second Cold War" was in essence a war of words which meant to be solid and at times stirring words.
In March 1983, President Reagan accuse the Soviet Union as the "center of evil in the world" and as an "evil kingdom". In rebuttal, Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov stated that the U.S. President is insane and a liar. Due to this result, conflicts grew and things became nasty. Moscow continually indicted President Reagan of admiring the heat of war and compared him to Hitler. Such overstatement was more of a result than a cause of tension, but it masked real fears. However, the Hitler comparison was more than a symbolic surplus, but rather a firm thought decision in the mind of the Soviet leaders. Moscow was in the center of a war scare that had two discrete stages: a largely concealed that started in 1981 and a more visible that occurred two years later.
Late in the Carter administration and following the first years of the Reagan administrations, the United States had started playing catch-up. To some observers, it started to appear that Marxist gains in the 1970's in such places as Indochina, Angola, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua had owed more to US divisions, diversions, and defeats than to Soviet power and influence. Now it become visible that Moscow had not really gained very much from its foreign adventures.
In an even more ultimate turnaround for the Soviet Union, US public judgment, disenchanted with détente and arms control, was now behind the largest peacetime defense increased in the nation's history.
For the most part, these movements began under President Carter and hasten under President Reagan. Moreover, the Carter administration began invigorating CIA secret action against the USSR. In addition to hasten the US military increase, President Reagan prolonged programs launched under his precursor to support human rights activists in the USSR, Poland, and the mujahedin in Afghanistan. In Western Europe, where the Kremlin had spent a long history of trying to gain friends and persuade people with its peace and detente policies, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany favored installing new US missiles to counter Soviet SS-20's aimed at his country and other NATO allies.
In March 1981, after President Reagan authorized to operate the psychological warfare operations (PSYOP) program and implement it near maritime moving towards to the USSR (where no man had ever been before), according to published accounts, the US Navy participated in this key role. In 1981 and 1983, navy movements performed near the far northern and eastern regions of the Soviet Union, which confirmed US the ability to position aircraft carrier battle groups close to sensitive military and industrial site without being notice or challenged early on. This implementation apparently incorporated secret operations that simulated surprise naval air attacks on Soviet targets.
When Reagan administration officials first discovered of RYAN, they allegedly illustrated a correlation between the US-led military probes and the Soviet warning, noticing that the Soviets were gradually more terrified. While Moscow seemingly taking account of the tit-for-tat nature of the US military operations and did not draw hard-and-fast assumption as to what these operations might foretell about purpose, it could not ignore either their insinuation for a shocking attack scenario or the gaps they exposed in the USSR's technical early warning systems.
In spite of their private matters, Soviet leaders preserved a public attitude of relative peaceful during 1981-1982. Even President Reagan's first Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, later gave Moscow credit stating that "the Soviets stayed very moderate, responsible during the first three years of this administration. I was mind-boggled with their patience". However, the endurance wore off in 1983.
On March 23, 1983, President Reagan broadcasted the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), promptly hail as "Star Wars" by the media. SDI was a set up for a ground and spaced-based, laser-armed antiballistic missile system that, if set out it would generate a protection for US land-based missiles. However, four days after the broadcasting by the President and in direct response, Andropov spoke out by accusing the United States of organizing a first- hit assail on the Soviet Union and declared that President Reagan was formulating new plans on how to set free a nuclear war in the best method, with the expectation of succeeding it".
(Conclusion)
The worries that provoked Operation RYAN seemed real, even if overstated.
The warning was a collide agenda to generate a planned caution system in reaction to new challenges that the Soviets observed as alarming on the horizon. The reaction was frightened but not unreasonable. One unknown historian, rejecting the paranoia thesis that has often been used to explain Russian reaction to technologically superior Western military power, captured the point when he wrote "at various times, Russian strategist were acutely fearful. But those fears, although at times extreme, were scarcely insane" (Time magazine's "Man of Year",
1983) Reference:
Fischer, B.B. (1997). A Cold War Conundrum: The 1983 Soviet War Scare. Retrieved
August 10, 2006 from Google on the World Wide Web:
https://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/coldwar/source.htm#HEADING1-17