limited the number of defensive weapons, indicating that both the United States and the Soviet Union accepted the idea that mutual vulnerability would increase stability- thereby institutionalizing mutual assured destruction (MAD). SALT II limited the total number of all types of strategic nuclear weapons. However, although agreed upon by both countries, SALT II was never ratified because American President Jimmy
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The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) were predicated on the concept of “minimum deterrence”-a regime in which both the United States and the Soviet Union would reduce nuclear arsenals to the minimum level needed to deter the other from attempting a first strike. As with previous bilateral nuclear weapons treaties between the United States and the USSR, the goal of START was to reduce the costs associated with a gratuitous arms buildup, while simultaneously increasing system stability by ensuring mutual vulnerability.
Prior agreements limited the number of weapons each nation possessed, but advancements in technology made these previously agreed upon levels untenable to the United States; in the early 1980s it was perceived that the Soviet Union was close to a first strike capability-the ability to attack enough targets in the United States so as to prevent a retaliatory strike.
This perception of a “window of vulnerability” prompted the Reagan Administration to undertake a massive weapons modernization program, in addition to pursuing the proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The Soviets believed that SDI was destabilizing and therefore were willing to make cuts in offensive nuclear arms in exchange for reENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
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strictions on American research and development of space-based defensive systems. As with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT), the Soviet Union was once again forsaking short-term superiority in favor of long- term stability.
START mandated cuts in the number of nuclear delivery systems by about 40 percent, reduced the number of warheads by roughly 30 percent, and also established more complete verification procedures.
The treaty was signed by President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on July 31, 1991 in Moscow. See also: ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY; ARMS CONTROL; D?TENTE; STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE
Kartchner, Kerry M. (1992). Negotiating START: Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and the Quest for Strategic Stability. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Mazarr, Michael J. (1991). START and the Future of Deterrence. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a United States military research program that President Ronald Reagan first proposed in March 1983, shortly after branding the USSR an “evil empire.” Its goal was to intercept incoming missiles in mid-course, high above the earth, hence making nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Nicknamed “Star Wars” by the media, the program entailed the use of space- and ground-based nuclear X-ray lasers, subatomic particle beams, and computer-guided projectiles fired by electromagnetic rail guns-all under the central control of a supercomputer system.
The Reagan administration peddled the program energetically within the United States and among NATO allies. In April 1984 a Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was established within the Department of Defense. The program’s futuristic weapons technologies, several of which were only in a preliminary research stage in the mid-1980s, were projected to cost anywhere from $100 billion to $1 trillion.
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After Reagan’s SDI speech, General Secretary Yuri Andropov denounced the program, telling a Pravda reporter that if Washington implemented SDI, the “floodgates of a runaway race of all types of strategic arms, both offensive and defensive” would open. Painfully aware of U.S. scientific and engineering skills, the Soviet leadership sought to eschew a costly technological arms race in which the United States was stronger.
With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and USSR, signing of the START I and II treaties, and the 1992 presidential election of Bill Clinton, the SDI received lower budgetary priority (like many other weapons programs). In 1993 Defense Secretary Les Aspin announced the abandonment of SDI and its replacement by a less costly program that would make use of ground-based antimissile systems. The SDIO was then replaced by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO).
In contrast to the actual expenditures on SDI (about $30 billion), spending on BMDO programs exceeded $4 billion annually in the late 1990s. See also: ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY; ARMS CONTROL; D?TENTE; STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TALKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anzovin, Steven. (1986). The Star Wars Debate. New York: Wilson. Boffey, Philip M. (1988). Claiming the Heavens: The New York Times Complete Guide to the Star Wars Debate. New York: Times Books. FitzGerald, Frances. (2000). Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War. New York: Simon amp; Schuster. FitzGerald, Mary C. (1987). Soviet Views on SDI. Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh. Teller, Edward. (1987). Better a Shield than a Sword: Perspectives on Defense and Technology. New York: Free Press.
(1882-1971), Russian composer.
Among the most influential composers of the twentieth century, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky epitomized the new prominence of Russian emigr?
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creative artists and their presence on the international scene in the years following the 1917 Revolution. Like the contributions of his emigr? colleague writer Vladimir Nabokov and choreographer George Balanchine-Stravinsky’s enormous contribution to his art significantly altered the course of twentieth-century music. Stravinsky’s compositions encompass every important musical trend of the period (neonationalism, neoclassicism, and serialism, to name a few) and include examples of all the major Western concert genres (opera, ballet, symphony, choral works, solo works, and numerous incidental works, including a polka for circus elephants).
The son of a St. Petersburg opera singer, Stravinsky attained international fame with his early ballet, The Firebird (1910), composed for Sergei Di-agilev’s Ballets Russes (with choreography by Michel Fokine). Several important ballets followed, including Petrushka (1911, also with Fokine) and the seminal Rite of Spring (1913, choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky), among the most famous works of art of the twentieth century. Stravinsky’s compositions for the theater continued to trace a path through the most significant musical and theatrical idioms of his century, and include Les Noces (1923, choreography by Bronislava Nijinska), Apol-lon musag?te (1928), and Agon (1957, both choreographed by Balanchine). Although Stravinsky was a supremely cosmopolitan figure, his music nonetheless retained traces of its Russian origins throughout his long career. See also: DIAGILEV, SERGEI PAVLOVICH; FIREBIRD; MUSIC; PETRUSHKA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stravinsky, Vera, and Craft, Robert. (1978). Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents. New York: Simon and Schuster. Taruskin, R. (1996). Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions. Berkeley: University of California Press. White, Eric Walter. (1979). Stravinsky: the Composer and His Works. Berkeley: University of California Press.
The musketeers, or streltsy (literally “shooters”), were organized as part of Ivan IV’s effort to reform
