The purpose of Star Wars was to bankrupt the Soviet Union, at which it succeeded magnificently. Cold War won, without a shot fired. That is strategy, my friend.
The purpose of this is to fill the pockets of EDS shareholders. No-one in the government has the slightest clue about IT, they believe whatever the consultants tell them. From the outside it's obviously a ridiculous idea. But inside the civil service, you've got this budget, you've got to spend it otherwise you'll get less next year, and it's not like you'll get fired whatever you do.
I'm always amazed how many people buy into that idea- do you really think that Reagan knew all along that it was a ploy to run the Soviet economy into the ground? SDI was a huge wealth transfer to the defense industry. The fall of the Soviet Union (if indeed you see that as a bad thing) had very little to do with a need to increase their military spending to keep par with Reagan.
The purpose of this is to fill the pockets of EDS shareholders. No-one in the government has the slightest clue about IT, they believe whatever the consultants tell them. From the outside it's obviously a ridiculous idea. But inside the civil service, you've got this budget, you've got to spend it otherwise you'll get less next year, and it's not like you'll get fired whatever you do.