'Ronald Reagan's Star Wars' takes you behind-the-scenes of Ronald Reagan's hotly debated strategy to keep the cold war from going hot. In an Oval Office speech in March of 1983, President Ronald Reagan unveiled his plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative system–nicknamed 'Star Wars'–which would defend the United States against a first-strike intercontinental ballistic missile attack by the Soviet Union. The Star Wars plan entailed building a network of ground and space-based systems using lasers armed with nuclear warheads to shoot down incoming Soviet missiles. Although never fully developed or deployed, elements of the 'Star Wars' system are still being debated to combat the global ballistic missile and nuclear threat.