'Star wars', from father to son

Star Wars is the name of a famous American science fiction film. This name has been attributed to President Ronald Reagan's 'Strategic Defense initiative' program during the Cold War. Under President Bush, it was replaced by the "National Missile Defense" program , also known as the "child of the Star Wars".

Between 'star wars' father and son have a common denominator: America causes a lot of enemies, so it is very afraid of being attacked suddenly. During the Cold War, the country could threaten to destroy the United States no other than the Soviet Union, a superpower with military and political power on par with the United States at that time.

Like science fiction movies

The model of ' space mine ' intercepts enemy missiles in SDI plans

The program "Active defense strategy" (SDI) was born in 1968 as an initiative of President Ronald Reagan. It is a system of equipment and weapons flying in space or located on the ground to prevent all attacks on the United States by strategic nuclear missiles.

SDI was born in the context of two US and Soviet powers extracting most of their GDP (gross domestic product) to deploy military technology, especially ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads that could attack any target on the ground (ICBM). The advantage of this weapon is that it is so fast that flight time is only in minutes, not hours. Usually it is launched from air, sea or land mobile launchers.

One of SDI's ideas was the most impressive: using laser energy to destroy all Soviet nuclear missiles from the air. This idea reminds people of the sci-fi weapons of Star Wars. So many Americans give SDI the name " Star Wars " ironically because at that time the research of manufacturing super weapons was in the early stages and very expensive. One of them is Dr. Carol Rosin, former counselor and spokesperson for Werner von Brawn.

SDI was also nicknamed ' Star Wars ' because in the speech that exhorted the American people to support SDI on August 3, 1983 in the state of Florida, President Reagan called the Soviet Union ' emperor '. the evil country 'a familiar phrase in the Star Wars movie. Another reason is quite interesting is that people want to poke his homeland Reagan who used to act as a movie actor.

The SDI program, right from its inception, was considered impossible by many well-known scientists. Physicist Hans Bethe, who used to make nuclear bombs and American hydrogen bombs, confirmed that the laser shield is 'impossible'. This defense system, he says, is too expensive, difficult to implement but easily destroyed. The Soviet Union only needed to use thousands of disguises to disrupt the system in a nuclear attack. And this is within the reach of the Soviet Union. According to him, the only way to stop the risk of nuclear war is through diplomatic negotiations. Astronomer Carl Sagan, also said that in order to rule SDI, the Soviet Union only needed to build a lot of missiles, the 'Star Wars' shield would be punctured.

The child is controversial

An ICBM missile interceptor missile in the NMD program (Photo: ND)

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the cold war, the SDI program also faded. However, the US military continued to work on building a more modest missile shield than SDI. This new defense program is called the National Missile Defense (NMD).

NMD develops and implements a shield to protect the United States capable of detecting, tracking and destroying enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles. Enemy missiles will be blocked by missiles or by laser weapons at the start, flying in space or at the head of the target.

In principle, NMD is like SDI. It intercepts enemy missiles from ground, sea and space, only in complexity and scale. It can only prevent a small attack by an ICBM missile of an enemy with a limited missile program, not as level as the Soviet Union. Such as Iran. A few months ago, North Korea was also regarded by the United States as a frightening threat. However, this situation has changed. North Korea has agreed to stop its nuclear program. Therefore, NMD also has the nickname 'child of the war of stars'.

The NMD Act of 1999 writes: '(NMD) is a US policy implemented as early as possible in the technical ability of an effective national missile defense system that can protect US territory against one limited attack by missile (accidental, unintentional or intentional) . '.

Under the administration of President Bush, NMD not only deployed on American territory. Bush also wants to expand the US NMD program into an international NMD, a multinational shield. The United States even invited Russia to join the program, arguing that Russia is also at risk of being attacked by a country with other nuclear weapons.

However, the larger the scale of NMD, the greater the technical challenges. Even on a small scale, the US missile defense system is not yet complete. Many tests failed or delayed.

Even so, Russia still opposes the NMD program when the US intends to deploy it in Poland and the Czech Republic. The US said it was only to deal with Iran but the Russians told it to threaten Russia. Even some American scientists confirmed this.

NGUYEN CAO