A "Corruption of British Science?": The Strategic Defense Initiative and British Technology Policy

This article shows that the competitive economic forces unleashed by globalization produced new technological choices for policymakers in Britain and throughout the developed world, which increasingly pitted Cold War security rationales against commercial opportunities. Those choices reveal a tension between core tenets of Thatcherism: alignment with U.S. foreign policy objectives and support for corporate interests. Britain's response to the U.S. 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative intensified ideological competition within the ruling Conservative Party about aligning with the United States or the European Union. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher endorsed British participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative because of supposed national security benefits, promises of economic gains, and suspicion of Britain's further integration in the European common market. This policy failed, as cabinet officials, parliamentarians, researchers, and corporations pursued alternative European arrangements for stimulating technological innovation that did not carry restrictions on intellectual property or limits on the value of research contracts.