Exploring the High-Tech Frontier

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The third conceivable outcome: the U.S. might conclude that it could, at enormous expense, build an imperfect but effective Star Wars system that the Soviets could counter only by extraordinary, costly and dangerous countermeasures. That would probably bring both nations, and the world, to a truly fateful decision: an arms race surpassing anything thus far imagined, or an arms-control deal reducing all categories of weapons. There would be precious little in between.