AHC/WI: Reagan Revives Sentinel/Safeguard

Yet at some point in the story Ozymandias says that even with the omniscient nuclear guy, the Soviets build so much nuclear weapons - 50 000 of them - that even Dr Manhattan couldn't stop them all. So in a sense, the existence of DR Manhattan makes nuclear apocalypse more probable... for the exact reasons you mention in your post.

The fact is if a government starts spending a lot of money on something in an arms race, the opposing government will have to assume that it is something worth that kind of money. And start devising countermeasures.

Practically that means the Soviets see US spending billions of bucks on a system that purportedly can negate the Soviet second strike capability. They then also see the US calling for across the board reduction of strategic weapons. While having extremely accurate missiles. After connecting the dots, they will conclude only one thing... And the Soviets will not like it.
 
Even at its peak, before SALT and the ABM Treaty the Safeguard system was only to guard 3 areas, I don't know how many missiles were to be emplaced. Protection of 3 sites with maybe 300-400 ABMs still leaves the majority of the US ICBM force unprotected as well as every other strategic target in the US from bomber and SLBM bases to cities. Even if the entire pre ABM Treaty Safeguard system was restarted under Reagan I doubt it would be totally destabilising since it can both be overwhelmed and doesn't cover much anyway. However Reagan stated in his SDI speech that it would be within the bounds of the ABM Treaty so at best the only thing to be reactivated would be the single ABM site at Grand Forks AFB.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Under the ABM Treaty (text here) it would also be legal to have up to fifteen single shot launchers at test ranges for development purposes. However, only single shot fixed land based systems were legal under the treaty.
 
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