Trial Balloons

This chapter is devoted to Konstantin Chernenko' efforts to shift superpower relations back to a détente-like footing during his time as a General Secretary of the Soviet Union. It examines attempts on the part of various Western leaders to carve out a role for themselves as the superpowers' chosen intermediary. It also investigates the balance of power between East and West, including how and why leaders in Washington and Moscow perceived and responded to each other as they did. The chapter analyzes the nuclear freeze movement, which has remained a political force to be reckoned with as the movement called for both superpowers to halt the construction and deployment of nuclear weapons. It talks about the freeze activists in the United States who shepherded the passage of nonbinding resolutions that support their cause in four state legislatures, the House, and the Senate.

New Departures

This chapter covers Ronald Reagan's first meeting with Mikhail Gorbache in Geneva in November 1985, exploring the internal and external roots of the nascent new thinking in Soviet foreign-policy and its impact on East–West relations. It recounts how superpower relations over a five-year period became messy and contradictory as Moscow and Washington exchanged harsh words and engaged in more dialogue than is commonly thought. It also mentions how the process of ending the Cold War had begun as US policymakers regained confidence in their place in the world and their Soviet counterparts took drastic measures to deal with a deteriorating situation. The chapter refers to policymakers in Washington and Moscow who struggled with the dualities of the Cold War. It describes that the policymakers witnessed a strong and rising United States and a Soviet Union that was on a grim downward trajectory.

Arm to Parley

This chapter examines the last two years of Leonid Brezhnev's life, shedding light on often ignored back channels between the superpowers. It describes the defense buildup that focused primarily on enhancing US nuclear forces, which Ronald Reagan had insisted were dangerously vulnerable to a Soviet first strike. It also cites how arms buildup benefited US allies, even if it occasionally entailed embarrassing public admonishments by Washington to increase their defense expenditures. The chapter illustrates the ideological warfare that occupied a newly important place under Reagan, who attacked the Soviet Union and its allies with apparent relish in public. It recounts US policymakers that congratulated themselves for finally putting the Soviet Union on the defensive, both militarily and ideologically, after just a year with Reagan in office.

Introduction

This chapter describes the Soviet Union as the focus of evil in the modern world and, most famously, an evil empire. It mentions General Secretary Iuriĭ Andropov, who implied that Ronald Reagan had nothing to say but profanities alternated with hypocritical preaching on the Soviet Union and looks at an article in Pravda that summed up Andropov's foreign-policy as nuclear insanity. It also explains the Cold War's improbable and unpredictable end, such as Reagan rejecting the failed foreign-policy doctrines of containment. The chapter talks about Mikhail Gorbachev, whose new thinking transformed the Soviet Union and transcended the East–West confrontation. It illustrates the Cold War's denouement between 1985 and 1991 that is regularly cited as a textbook case of long-standing adversaries setting aside prior disagreements and beginning to cooperate.

Talking about Talking

This chapter addresses Yuri Andropov's tenure in the Kremlin, including his efforts to reform both foreign and domestic policy, and the crises of late 1983. It mentions Major Gennadiĭ Osipovich, an interceptor pilot who had shot down a Boeing 747 passenger aircraft that was en route from New York to Seoul in the summer of 1983. It also recounts how Moscow denied any wrongdoing in the Boeing 747 incident, implying the Soviet Air Force was fully within its rights to down a plane violating Soviet airspace. The chapter explores 1983 as a year of extremes as it witnessed some of the largest protests in European history demanding that no more US nuclear weapons be deployed to the continent. It elaborates on how the crisis never gave way to conflagration as policymakers from both the Kremlin and the White House engaged their Cold War rivals.

Red Star Rising

This chapter sketches how the world looked from Washington and Moscow at the dawn of the 1980s. It explains why policymakers in the United States were convinced that they had fallen behind the Kremlin when the Soviet Union was already beginning to come apart at the seams. It also cites Soviet leaders that were confident in their own position despite the acute problems plaguing their country as they viewed the perceived balance of power as one tipped in the Kremlin's favor. The chapter discusses the détente as a golden age of US–Soviet arms control agreements but had eventually failed to make the United States and its allies any more secure by the beginning of the 1980s. It cites the Western European public opinion, in which several West German and French respondents believed that the Soviet bloc had a military edge over the West.

Conclusion

This chapter recounts how foreign policymakers operate in a world shaped by the end of the Cold War when the Soviet flag was lowered one last time over the Kremlin in 1991. It traces the events from 1985 to 1991 as the story of a crumbling Soviet Union and a United States that inexorably headed for its unipolar moment. It also elaborates why Washington has not done as it pleased in the world, such as expanding NATO eastward and dismissing Moscow's protestations. The chapter explores how expanding the temporal scope of the end of the Cold War makes for a very different story as taking five earlier years into account changes the picture. It highlights the Soviet Union trying desperately to stop its decline and remain a coequal superpower to the United States, and the United States being keen to speed Moscow's decay, which is a dramatic reversal of fortunes that left an indelible mark on the minds of Kremlin policymakers today.