Article ID: CBB001033658

The Rise and Fall of Safeguard: Anti-ballistic Missile Technology and the Nixon Administration (2010)

unapi

The Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system was the first (and up until 2002 the only) system deployed to defend the USA from nuclear-armed ballistic missile attack. It was finally declared operational in September 1975 after many years of development and fierce controversy over both its feasibility and its desirability. However, almost immediately Congress voted to close the system down and it was dismantled within a few months. This paper draws on documents available in the Nixon archives to describe the complex intertwining of 'politics' and 'technology' that meant that a system that involved huge investment, and that had been portrayed as central to US defense policy, became apparently dispensable almost overnight.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001033658/

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Authors & Contributors
Edward Kaplan
Susan Colbourn
Elisabeth Roehrlich
Maar, Henry Richard, III
Alvandi, Roham
Wolf, Reinhard
Concepts
Cold War
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Technology and war; technology and the military
Missiles
Military technology
Technology and politics
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
South Dakota (U.S.)
Cuba
Europe
Iran
Institutions
United States Air Force (USAF)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
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