Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/LIM-49 Nike Zeus/archive2


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2015 (UTC).

LIM-49 Nike Zeus

 * Nominator(s): Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

This article is about the US's first concerted effort to build and deploy an anti-ballistic missile system. It faced enormous hurdles as the nature of the ICBM threat changed more rapidly than it could be developed. By the time it entered final testing in 1962, it was clear the system was essentially useless.

The missile is interesting, but the overarching story is even more interesting. While researching the article, I came across formerly secret documents discussing the effectiveness of the Zeus system. Lacking Zeus, they predicted that the Soviets would kill 95% of the US population in a full-scale exchange. Zeus would reduce that to only 75%. They concluded it simply wasn't worth building - why bother spending $10 to $12 billion saving a few million civilians?

Zeus eventually died, and was replaced by a way more complex system, Nike-X. Nike-X entered into a race with even more ICBMs. Rinse, repeat - Sentinel, Safeguard, Sentry, SDI... I find the Zeus story to be a wonderful microcosm of the entire Cold War era debate about megadeaths and guns and butter.

Plus it has some super-cool color pictures of missile launches.

Relisting after closure. All issues raised in the last FAC were addressed when it was closed, but I have made some tweaks since then. Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Support: It's a long read but well-written, thorough, and an interesting piece of history. I found only one very minor issue, which I addressed. I believe this article is worthy of being promoted to featured status. Praemonitus (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Closing comment -- Sorry but this review has stalled so I'll be archiving it shortly. Given the lack of commentary I'd have no objection to renominating in less than the usual two weeks, but another try at MilHist A-Class might also be in order first. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:40, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.