Abstract

Reagan's March 23, 1983 speech concerning the need to give the U.S. “the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete” marked the beginning of a new era in American nuclear strategy and, consequently, in world nuclear strategy. This statement announced a new desire to leave behind the era of nuclear deterrence, based on the nuclear balance of terror, by developing new anti-missile technologies that will make defensive forces more effective than offensive ones. In fact, since the beginning of the nuclear age, nuclear strategies have all been based on the fact that offensive forces were superior: even today, anti-missile defenses cannot compensate for the advantage of the attack