The Tale of Two Terms: The Reagan Diplomatic Transition

Abstract

Most strategists assumed that the Cold War, in large measure shaped by the nuclear bomb, would be resolved in a string of mushroom clouds. As this chapter will illustrate, that the Cold War ended without such a clash was due in large measure to the efforts of American president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in spurring the process to reduce nuclear arsenals. These two charismatkjljklic leaders, who differed in so many ways, were an oddly matched pair who sought to lessen the prospects of a nuclear war. Reagan, the older of the two, was a convinced, out-spoken anti-Communist, who came to the White House with little understanding of the Soviet Union and largely uniformed about the intricacies of nuclear weaponry. Without intellectual or analytical pretensions, his fear that these destructive weapons might be used would lead him to urge the development and deployment of a questionable missile defense system and seek a halt to building nuclear weaponry. Gorbachev, a dedicated communist bent on domestic reform, provided the imaginative leadership that redirected Moscow’s relations with the West even while it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.