Appetite For Destruction

Arsenals Of Folly by Richard Rhodes is the third in his nuclear trilogy, preceded by The Making Of The Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb. Folly skips ahead to the 1980's and the height of the Cold War, the Reagan-Gorbachev summits, and subsequent disarmament treaties.

This is really an exceptional book, very well documented, with a lot of insight on this period of history. I found several things surprising. In order of decreasing shock value:

• Reagan was evidently a sincere believer in Armageddon theology, and that he himself was fated to play a significant, Biblical role in end times. This was perhaps the root of his stubborn attachment to SDI (Star Wars): the idea that it would be part of this prophetic scheme, providing the means to survive an apocalypse. I personally find it quite frightening that the leader of the free world for eight years was so disconnected from rationality. Bush Jr. may be of the same persuasion, though perhaps without the ego to place himself in such a direct role, and certainly without the mental capacity to really think it through. And now again, with Palin, we have another who could imagine herself in that role (not to mention McCain's new found willingness to appease evangelicals).
• Neoconservatives, including many who are responsible for our current misadventures, actively worked to scuttle negotiations with Russia. And they were successful in a number of cases. In a strategy that exactly presaged Iraq, "Team B" interpreted intelligence data with a worst-case bias, in order to fit their pre-conceived politics. Another stratagem was Richard Perle's "zero solution", designed to sound fair but be unacceptable to the Soviets, whereupon they could use this seeming intransigence to reduce the level of support for serious talks. Other "poison pills" weakened our commitment to existing treaties (ABM) or ones in progress (SALT II). Another underhanded, even treasonous, tactic was to leak certain internal memos prior to summits, basically creating P.R. obstacles for the non-hardliner faction to overcome.
• Reagan, perhaps because of a post-assassination-attempt deathbed conversion, became personally committed to the idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons. This newfound role was dramatically out of step with the hawks in his own cabinet. However, his continued attachment to SDI, skillfully manipulated by the neo-cons, led to an impasse at Reykjavik.
• The "triumphalist" view of the Cold War, that far-sighted U.S. war planners intended all along to drive the Soviet Union into economic collapse through the vehicle of astronomical weapons spending, is incorrect. Key players of the period deny it.