Recently, while campaigning in New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump proposed reviving an oldie but goodie from the Reagan era. He said, “I will build an Iron Dome over our country, a state-of-the-art missile defense shield made in the USA. We do it for other countries. We help other countries, we build, we don’t do it for ourselves.”

Trump invoked the spirit of Reagan when he went on to say, “You know, Reagan proposed that many years ago, Star Wars. He proposed it many, many years ago. But at that time, there was no technology. It was just, like, it looked good. But we have unbelievable technology. We should have then.”

The Iron Dome is the wildly successful Israeli anti-missile defense system that has worked so well warding off bombardments from terrorist groups on Israel’s borders. But “Star Wars” or, as it is properly known, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), has a long and storied history dating back to the depths of the Cold War.

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech to the nation in which he proposed building a defensive system that would counter the threat of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union against the United States and........

© The Hill