In completing this project, I have accumulated a host of debts. Ronald Reagan to Paul Trousdale, May 23, 1983 We have more contact with the Soviets than anyone is aware of and whether to have a meeting or not is on the agenda at both ends of the line. Ronald Reagan to John Koehler, July 9, 1981 The problem is, you can’t talk about it afterward or then you can’t do it again.
I’m a believer in quiet diplomacy and so far we’ve had several quite triumphant experiences by using that method. Read moreĮNGAGING THE EVIL EMPIRE WASHINGTON, MOSCOW, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE COLD WAR SIMON MILES Miles's bold narrative shifts the focus of Cold War historians away from exclusive attention on Washington by focusing on the years of back-channel communiqués and internal strategy debates in Moscow as well as Prague and East Berlin. Engaging the Evil Empire covers five critical years of Cold War history when Soviet leaders tried to reduce tensions between the two nations in order to gain economic breathing room and, to ensure domestic political stability, prioritize expenditures on butter over those on guns. In reality, Miles clearly demonstrates, Reagan and ranking officials in the National Security Council had determined that the United States enjoyed a strategic margin of error that permitted it to engage Moscow overtly.Īs US grand strategy developed, so did that of the Soviet Union. The received wisdom in diplomatic circles is that the beginning of the end of the Cold War came from changing policy preferences and that President Reagan in particular opted for a more conciliatory and less bellicose diplomatic approach. Miles narrates the history of these dramatic years, as President Ronald Reagan consistently applied a disciplined carrot-and-stick approach, reaching out to Moscow while at the same time excoriating the Soviet system and building up US military capabilities. Tracking key events in US-Soviet relations across the years between 19, Simon Miles shows that covert engagement gave way to overt conversation as both superpowers determined that open diplomacy was the best means of furthering their own, primarily competitive, goals. In a narrative-redefining approach, Engaging the Evil Empire dramatically alters how we look at the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
0 kommentar(er)
