8 - Interest and influence

Summary

Of necessity, members of the SDI interest groups helped to shape policy on SDL. This chapter assesses the extent to which they managed unduly to influence policy or override criticisms of the programme. After considering the amount of lobbying by SDI contractors, it studies the influences on the making and implementation of SDI policy in the Pentagon, within the Executive and in Congress.

As shown in the previous chapter, many corporations made a major practical commitment to SDI, through investment of material resources or expansion of the infrastructure. This suggests that they would be all the more likely to oppose any threat to SDI should one transpire.

Members of the SDI infrastructure wrote articles in favour of SDI. ‘Strategic Defenses and Deterrence: A Strategic-Operational Assessment’, for example, praises SDI as one of Reagan's major accomplishments and describes an array of benefits it might confer. The text itself is fairly unremarkable. It outlines a ‘concept of integrated offense/defense operations’ and argues that, by increasing the attacker's uncertainty, SDI will stabilise the ‘nuclear balance’ and bolster deterrence. More revealing is the authorship of the article, which demonstrates the informal collaboration of members of the SDI infrastructure. One of the three authors, Dr Kane, was the director of Rockwell's ‘Strategic Systems and Strategic Defense Center’ from 1981 to 1986.