澳门六合彩

In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he established the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as 鈥淪tar Wars,鈥� a space-based missile defense program that aimed to protect the US from nuclear attack. In聽Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws from recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to give an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space after the superpower d茅tente fell apart in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely secret role of military space technologies in late鈥揅old War US defense strategy and foreign relations.

In contrast to existing narratives,聽Weapons in Space聽shows how tension over the role of military space technologies in American statecraft was a central source of SDI's controversy, even more so than questions of technical feasibility. By detailing the participation of Western European countries in SDI research and development, Bateman reframes space militarization in the 1970s and 1980s as an international phenomenon. He further reveals that even though SDI did not come to fruition, it obstructed diplomatic efforts to create new arms control limits in space. Consequently,聽Weapons in Space聽carries the legacy of SDI into the post鈥揅old War era and shows how this controversial program continues to shape the global discourse about instability in space鈥攁nd the growing anxieties about a twenty-first-century space arms race.

Aaron Bateman is an assistant professor of history and international affairs at the George Washington University. Trained as a historian of science and technology, his interests lie at the nexus of science, technology, and international security. Specifically, Aaron鈥檚 research investigates how science and technology have shaped foreign policy, nuclear strategy, alliance dynamics, and arms control. His scholarship has explored many of these themes through the lens of the space age during the Cold War. His first book, Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Stragtegic Defense Initiative,聽is an international history of Ronald Reagan鈥檚 controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), more popularly known as 鈥淪tar Wars.鈥� Using recently declassified documents, he situates SDI within intensifying U.S. - Soviet military space competition in the final two decades of the Cold War that emerged as d茅tente collapsed. He also details SDI鈥檚 enduring consequences for arms control and its connections with resurgent anxieties about an arms race in space.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year.