And in Poland, the Soviets denied the will of the people and in doing demonstrated to the world how their military power could also be used to intimidate. The final fact is that the Soviet Union is acquiring what can only be considered an offensive military force. They have continued to build far more intercontinental ballistic missiles than they could possibly need simply to deter an attack.
Their conventional forces are trained and equipped not so much to defend against an attack as they are to permit sudden, surprise offensives of their own. Our NATO allies have assumed a great defense burden, including the military draft in most countries.
We're working with them and our other friends around the world to do more. Our defensive strategy means we need military forces that can move very quickly, forces that are trained and ready to respond to any emergency. Every item in our defense program - our ships, our tanks, our planes, our funds for training and spare parts - is intended for one all-important purpose: to keep the peace. Unfortunately, a decade of neglecting our military forces had called into question our ability to do that.
When I took office in January , I was appalled by what I found: American planes that couldn't fly and American ships that couldn't sail for lack of spare parts and trained personnel and insufficient fuel and ammunition for essential training.
The inevitable result of all this was poor morale in our Armed Forces, difficulty in recruiting the brightest young Americans to wear the uniform, and difficulty in convincing our most experienced military personnel to stay on. There was a real question then about how well we could meet a crisis. And it was obvious that we had to begin a major modernization program to ensure we could deter aggression and preserve the peace in the years ahead.
We had to move immediately to improve the basic readiness and staying power of our conventional forces, so they could meet - and therefore help deter - a crisis. We had to make up for lost years of investment by moving forward with a long-term plan to prepare our forces to counter the military capabilities our adversaries were developing for the future.
I know that all of you want peace, and so do I. I know too that many of you seriously believe that a nuclear freeze would further the cause of peace. But a freeze now would make us less, not more, secure and would raise, not reduce, the risks of war. It would be largely unverifiable and would seriously undercut our negotiations on arms reduction. It would reward the Soviets for their massive military buildup while preventing us from modernizing our aging and increasingly vulnerable forces. With their present margin of superiority, why should they agree to arms reductions knowing that we were prohibited from catching up?
Believe me, it wasn't pleasant for someone who had come to Washington determined to reduce government spending, but we had to move forward with the task of repairing our defenses or we would lose our ability to deter conflict now and in the future. We had to demonstrate to any adversary that aggression could not succeed, and that the only real solution was substantial, equitable, and effectively verifiable arms reduction - the kind we're working for right now in Geneva.
Thanks to your strong support, and bipartisan support from the Congress, we began to turn things around. Already, we're seeing some very encouraging results. Quality recruitment and retention are up dramatically - more high school graduates are choosing military careers, and more experienced career personnel are choosing to stay.
Our men and women in uniform at last are getting the tools and training they need to do their jobs. Ask around today, especially among our young people, and I think you will find a whole new attitude toward serving their country. This reflects more than just better pay, equipment, and leadership. You the American people have sent a signal to these young people that it is once again an honor to wear the uniform.
That's not something you measure in a budget, but it's a very real part of our nation's strength. It'll take us longer to build the kind of equipment we need to keep peace in the future, but we've made a good start. We haven't built a new long-range bomber for 21 years. Now we're building the B We hadn't launched one new strategic submarine for 17 years. Now we're building one Trident submarine a year. We're determining how to solve that problem. At the same time, we're working in the START and INF negotiations with the goal of achieving deep reductions in the strategic and intermediate nuclear arsenals of both sides.
We have also begun the long-needed modernization of our conventional forces. The Army is getting its first new tank in 20 years. The Air Force is modernizing. We're rebuilding our Navy, which shrank from about a thousand ships in the late 's to during the 's. Our nation needs a superior navy to support our military forces and vital interests overseas. We're now on the road to achieving a ship navy and increasing the amphibious capabilities of our marines, who are now serving the cause of peace in Lebanon.
And we're building a real capability to assist our friends in the vitally important Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region. This adds up to a major effort, and it isn't cheap. It comes at a time when there are many other pressures on our budget and when the American people have already had to make major sacrifices during the recession.
But we must not be misled by those who would make defense once again the scapegoat of the Federal budget. The fact is that in the past few decades we have seen a dramatic shift in how we spend the taxpayer's dollar.
Back in , payments to individuals took up only about 20 percent of the Federal budget. For nearly three decades, these payments steadily increased and, this year, will account for 49 percent of the budget. By contrast, in defense took up more than half of the Federal budget.
By this spending had fallen to a low of 23 percent. Even with the increase that I am requesting this year, defense will still amount to only 28 percent of the budget. The calls for cutting back the defense budget come in nice, simple arithmetic. They're the same kind of talk that led the democracies to neglect their defenses in the s and invited the tragedy of World War II.
We must not let that grim chapter of history repeat itself through apathy or neglect. This is why I'm speaking to you tonight - to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength.
If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It's up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization became the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, with a priority of developing ground- and sea-based regional defensive systems. And many of those people are still around. Democratic politicians have traditionally opposed the idea, a partisan trend which could continue.
Along with reduced Cold War tensions, Gorbachev was aware that the U. The INF Treaty, which eliminated all short-range miles and intermediate-range miles nuclear missiles, was signed at the Washington Summit later that year. Caption: The logo of the Missile Defense Agency. In , President George W. NDA, which still exists today, has studied the possibilities of space-based anti-ballistic missile technology , as SDI once did, although without any significant results to date.
Hanhimaki, Jussi M. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Shultz, George P. Browse our collection of oral histories with workers, families, service members, and more about their experiences in the Manhattan Project. Skip to main content. History Page Type:. Cold War History. Wednesday, July 18, Reagan announces the Strategic Defense Initiative. Graffiti in West Germany, "No star wars! A Soviet artist's depiction of the Terra ground-based laser. Reagan and Gorbachev at the Reykjavik Summit, Related Video:.
More Historical Resources:. Gaddis, John Lewis. Gorbachev, Mikhail. Of course this is now. In the s, that kind of technology was rudimentary. Still, Pinsker argues, that was the point of Reagan's initiative—to grind away at the research until the concept became feasible.
It didn't happen overnight with either, and both were incredibly expensive. Artist's concept of interceptor under development for US Army's High Endoatmospheric Defense Interceptor, a key element of SDI's plan, in sub-launched scenario in which the US could defend from submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks.
Partisan debate on the issue had Democrats in Congress questioning the viability of the program, with Louisiana Senator J.
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