Russia Running Scared of U.S. Weapons

In the late 1980s, I closely followed U.S. President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program, or Strategic Defense Initiative. But what I couldn't understand was why the Kremlin took it so seriously, when the program had not developed any new weapons systems and posed no threat to the Soviet Union's national security. The answer was apparently that the Soviet military-industrial complex desperately needed a bogeyman with which it could convince leaders to allocate huge sums of money for defense, even in a rapidly deteriorating economic situation. As a result, the attempt to oppose the Strategic Defense Initiative played a significant role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. History is repeating itself as U.S. Prompt Global Strike is replacing "Star Wars" as the new bogeyman.