This book includes original essays by leading experts on every aspect of the issue of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Providing a valuable introduction to the many complex questions involved, the book also includes a detailed history of the strategic defense debate.

Foreword -- Preface -- Part One -- Looking Back: Strategic Defense and US National Security -- SDI: A Personal Vision -- The Case Against SDI -- SDI: Why It Is Important -- The SDI Debate: A Critic's Perspective -- SDI's Impact on US-Soviet Relations -- Five Fallacies of SDI -- The Soviet Union's View of SDI -- The Technical Feasibility of SDI -- The Technical (In)feasibility of SDI -- Why SDI Can and Must Be Done -- Strategic Defenses and Future US Defense Strategy -- SDI and US Nuclear Doctrine -- SDI: A European View -- SDI and the European Defense Debate -- West Germany and SDI -- Canada and the Future of Strategic Defense -- The Pros and Cons of Strategic Defense: Discussions at the Virginia Military Institute -- Part Two -- Address on the Strategic Defense Initiative -- SDI, Arms Control, and Stability: Toward a New Synthesis -- SDI: Progress and Promise -- Reykjavik Summit: The American View -- Department of Defense News Briefing Following the Reykjavik Summit -- Defence and Security in the Nuclear Age: The British View -- Britain and the Strategic Defense Intitiative -- Press Conference on the Strategic Defense Initiative -- Reykjavik Summit: The Soviet View -- Space-Strike Arms and International Security -- The National Pledge of Non-Participation: A Boycott of SDI Research -- Appeal by American Scientists to Ban Space Weapons -- The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty