What If? During the Cold War, an Anti-Nuclear Weapon Laser Based Defense System was made?

[CarlManvers2019]

Presume that this technology was somehow developed in secret in the USA and needed to be spread across the entire nation and other parts of the world to be more effective?

How would the Cold War's Arms Race deal with the presence of tech that can stop nukes before they get too close?

 

[Agent Mulder]

Assuming this was the excalibur satellite we were already planning to build, probably not much. The only difference would be that both sides would invest in even more of a nuclear arsenal so that they could overwhelm the defenses with firepower, and the planet would overall have a higher explosive yield for it.