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During the Cold War, superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the "Dead Hand," a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses. This, the first full account of how the arms race finally ended, provides an unprecedented look at the inner motives and secret decisions of each side. Drawing on top-secret documents from deep inside the Kremlin, memoirs, and interviews in both Russia and the United States, David Hoffman introduces the scientists, soldiers, diplomats, and spies who saw the world sliding toward disaster and tells the gripping story of how Reagan, Gorbachev, and many others struggled to bring the madness to an end.--From publisher description.… (more)
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Rather than present an exhaustive study of the complex science or realpolitik pressures at play, Hoffman tends to give credence to personality by singling out quirky moments and conversational tipping points (i.e., the notes President Reagan scrawled in the margins of dense white papers seem to matter more than the content of the papers themselves). There's nothing inherently disingenuous about this kind of history, but it avoids the distinction of being comprehensive.
Apparently there is a significant amount of primary - even groundbreaking - research that has made its way into this book. This may be enough to recommend it to readers with an existing library on the Cold War who nonetheless have an appetite for historical minutia. For those with merely a passing familiarity with the nuclear arms race, this might present more questions than answers (which might recommend it as well). To keep the story moving, Hoffman often breezes over motivations, geopolitics, and technical specifics; a tactic which tends to focus the reader's credulity on the author himself. Fortunately, such credulity is ultimately well placed. There is authority here, even if it not always on display.
Finally, it reads very much like newspaper writing: often dry, with ham-fisted (and unnecessary) attempts to humanize characters, bland repetition for fear of being unclear, and a generalized simplification of convoluted realities.
Hoffman does a particularly good job with the Soviet chemical and biological weapons programs, how they came about, developed and later uncovered. The pathogens created were diabolical enough to kill every human in the world with no anecdote. The Soviet chemical weapons are now loose in Syria, thanks to one rouge individual. As one pundit said, the Soviet weapons problem will be with us for many generations. I was also impressed by the depiction of Reagan who is usually seen as a warmonger but seemingly was just the opposite, he wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons; however it also revealed the myth that Reagan "won" the Cold War, the Soviets would have failed anyway. 1985 seems to be the beginning of the end when the Old Breed WWII vets lost control and a new generation headed by Gorbachev took over. The book ends on a chilling note that the Cold War had a balance of power, neither side wanted to die, thus WMD's were kept in check. However the present era of terrorism, in which the belligerents want to die, and asynchronous warfare, in which a single person can cause untold damage, changes everything.
There are many great stories in this book, if it drags in a few place that is OK because all told its well worth it. This review is based on the audiobook, it translates well to narrative form.
Against this intention, however, were his constant provocative anti-Soviet public statements that could be legitimately received as antagonistic, even threatening. The story is chilling because of circumstances in the early 1980’s where misperceptions and the response to those brought us to the brink of an actual nuclear exchange. Reagan’s openly hostile demeanor toward the Soviets brought their leaders (a succession of old guard hacks – Andropov and Chernenko) to believe that the United States was planning a first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Their level of obsession reached a state of paranoia. They surmised that the US would first take out the leadership through an all-out attack with its nuclear arsenal. This led to devising a command and control protocol that would allow a launch command to be sent without the real-time authorization of the top leaders – a semi-automatic launch command to the missile officers at the silos, hence the “dead hand” that would in effect pull the nuclear trigger. One thing is clear: the Soviets felt genuinely, if erroneously, threatened about the West’s intentions. While they were not reckless about their own use of nuclear weapons, a series of missteps or technical breakdowns stemming from their fears could have resulted in a nuclear exchange. The book recounts incidents where, due to errors in early warning systems, the Soviets thought they were being attacked. The decision time to launch a counter attack is just minutes, the so-called “hair trigger” danger of nuclear strategy.
Reagan’s effort to eliminate nuclear weapons was thwarted by his obsession with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or the so-called Star Wars program). It is puzzling why he held so tightly to this new aspect that would inevitably upset the balance between the super powers. It seems clear that this was not just a bargaining chip he played against the Soviets. He apparently truly believed that this anti-ballistic missile “shield” would protect against nuclear attacks (although the science and technology were/are highly suspect) and could bring about the reduction or elimination of offensive weapons. The Soviets, whose economy could not bear another expensive weapons venture, logically viewed SDI as destabilizing the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) balance between the two countries. SDI would create greater threat to them since, after all, if the US could destroy the Soviet’s nuclear missiles then its own could be used without fear of retaliation.
Another chilling aspect of this story, told at great length and in remarkable detail, is the Soviet’s development of biological weapons. After an international treaty banning the production and possession of biological weapon agents was signed by most countries, the Soviet Union completely violated the treaty by continuing with a full-scale, highly secret program of manufacturing the most heinous weapons imaginable. The Soviets believed wrongly that the US was also ignoring the treaty and they continued on a massive scale to find and weaponize diseases that would create the most horrific consequences if used. The Soviet leaders were aware of this, but couldn’t exercise complete control as there was a powerful military-industrial combine that worked to perpetuate it. Indeed, the influence of the defense/warfare sector of the Russian economy (and surely our own) was a strongly contributing factor to the arms race in all dimensions. (One must remember that the Soviet economy had a huge defense industry, a much larger component of the country’s economy than in the US.)
The Soviet Union collapsed during Gorbachev’s rule. Gorbachev was not the radical reformer that he is often portrayed to be, but his moves to open up Soviet society unleashed forces that took matters far beyond what he intended. Gorbachev and Reagan develop a true rapport, but institutional impediments (including the military/industrial combines in both countries and the SDI) prevented making substantial progress on arms control. It was after the Soviet economy collapsed (and, yes, the constant pressure of keeping up with the Americans had something to do with this) that the unsustainability of the levels of nuclear weapons compelled change.
However, as the Soviet’s economy and authority structure collapsed the already poor controls over nuclear weapons and weapons materials have become clear and very worrisome. The book conveys the laxity of security over weapons and weapons materials and the ability of rogue actors to spread these elsewhere. Even if, thankfully, the chances of full-scale nuclear war have greatly lessened, the possibilities that weapons or weapons components could fall into maleficent hands has greatly increased. In the “MAD” era of the cold war (and one would not wish to return to this) the opposing powers had compelling institutional rationales for not attacking each other. Our new enemies have no such inhibiting pressure on them. There are international programs aimed at destroying stockpiles, or at least accounting for them under strict security, but the chances that these materials could fall under the control of terrorists seems very great. One remembers the fear and revulsion created by two homemade “pressure cooker” bombs in Boston; just think of what could happen if even a small amount of nuclear/radioactive elements were unleashed anywhere in the country. The efforts to gain (regain?) control over the security of the products of the Cold War deserve the highest attention possible.
Lots of little known info on nuclear command control and disarmament issues. The chem bio stuff is downright terrifying when you realize much of the stockpile either still exists or can easily be made by anyone with right materials.
Recommend
I expected a relatively balanced history of the cold war. However, the author allocated roughly the same amount of time to the entire history of the cold war prior to President Reagan as he did for each year of the Reagan presidency. The author appears to be a huge
Also, in the introduction the author led me to believe that the work was more balanced between USSR and US points of view. I felt that it was more like 80% US versus 20% USSR points of view.
So if you want to read a history of the cold war from the US point of view during the Reagan years then I highly recommend this book. If you want to read an entire history of the cold war then I suggest looking elsewhere.
Holy crap, this is some serious shit.