Strategic Defense Initiative

Judgment in Managerial Decision Making: The Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed in 1983 by then-president Ronald Reagan (Fitzgerald, 2001). The goal of the SDI was to use both space-based and ground-based defense systems to protect the United States from an attack by nuclear ballistic missiles. This was a change from a prior doctrine, Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, that had been focused on offensive ideas, instead of simply defending the country from something that might take place (Fitzgerald, 2001).

An organization was set up in 1984 to manage and oversee the SDI (Fitzgerald, 2001). Reagan was interested in neutralizing the Soviet military when it came to nuclear issues, and believed that a defensive system against nuclear missile strikes would be the best way to handle the issue. Because Reagan was very much against MAD, he wanted to make sure it was ended as a deterrent strategy for nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union (Fitzgerald, 2001).

The idea of SDI was a good one in many ways, but it was also unrealistic in that creating some type of "global shield" to keep out nuclear ballistic missiles was not something for which the U.S. had proper technology, and not something that could be easily or quickly created. It was also not a cost-effective measure. Certain aspects of SDI still remain today, and the U.S.

advanced its knowledge of missile systems and defense systems much farther than expected because it focused on SDI-related issues so strongly for a period of time (Fitzgerald, 2001). However, the scope of the idea was adjusted to be more reflective of regional coverage and protection in the event of a nuclear missile launch from the Soviet Union or another country, instead of a country-encompassing type of shield that would be put into action (Fitzgerald, 2001).

Even though Reagan did not see the idea of his "Star Wars" type of defense come to pass, the U.S. is generally thought to be better off because of all the strong missile defense research it conducted in response to the tensions with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the post-war period (Fitzgerald, 2001). During that time, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in something called the competitive escalation paradigm. This comes about when one entity (i.e.

A person, business, organization, or even a country) attempts to, essentially, "one up" another entity and the competition between what they have, what they want, or what they can do simply continues to escalate quickly (Bazerman & Moore, 2009). The U.S. And the Soviet Union did that with their missile defense and offense strategies, with both countries focused on building up missiles they could use to attack the other one and defenses they would use to keep the other one's missiles out (Fitzgerald, 2001).

It is good to be prepared, and protecting a country from a nuclear ballistic missile strike is certainly important, but both countries took these issues too far. It was not that they needed more missiles or a better defense, necessarily, but that they wanted to have more than the "competing" country had.

This is seen as a behavior in people and in organizations, and since people operate countries and they are, in some ways, run like organizations, it is understandable that it could be seen in something as large as the actions.