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Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Making of the Atomic the story of the entire postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade when the United States and the Soviet Union came within scant hours of nuclear war—and then nearly agreed to abolish nuclear weapons.
In a narrative that reads like a thriller, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration’s unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led ailing Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In the fall of 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises that included, uniquely, a practice run-up to a nuclear attack, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first strike on Europe and North America. With Soviet aircraft loaded with nuclear bombs warming up on East German runways, U.S. intelligence organizations finally realized the danger. Then Reagan, out of deep conviction, launched the arms-reduction campaign of his second presidential term and set the stage for his famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the breakthroughs that followed.
Rhodes reveals the early influence of neoconservatives and right-wing figures such as Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. We see how Perle in particular sabotaged the Reykjavik meeting by convincing Reagan that mutual nuclear disarmament meant giving up his cherished dream of strategic defense (the Star Wars system). Rhodes’s detailed exploration of these and other events constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives, demonstrating that the manipulation of government and public opinion with fake intelligence and threat inflation that the administration of George W. Bush has used to justify the current “war on terror” and the disastrous invasion of Iraq were developed and applied in the Reagan era and even before.
Drawing on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants, and on a wealth of new documentation, memoir literature, and oral history that has become available only in the past ten years, Rhodes recounts what actually happened in the final years of the Cold War that led to its dramatic end. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising—a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.
In a narrative that reads like a thriller, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration’s unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led ailing Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In the fall of 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises that included, uniquely, a practice run-up to a nuclear attack, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first strike on Europe and North America. With Soviet aircraft loaded with nuclear bombs warming up on East German runways, U.S. intelligence organizations finally realized the danger. Then Reagan, out of deep conviction, launched the arms-reduction campaign of his second presidential term and set the stage for his famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the breakthroughs that followed.
Rhodes reveals the early influence of neoconservatives and right-wing figures such as Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz. We see how Perle in particular sabotaged the Reykjavik meeting by convincing Reagan that mutual nuclear disarmament meant giving up his cherished dream of strategic defense (the Star Wars system). Rhodes’s detailed exploration of these and other events constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives, demonstrating that the manipulation of government and public opinion with fake intelligence and threat inflation that the administration of George W. Bush has used to justify the current “war on terror” and the disastrous invasion of Iraq were developed and applied in the Reagan era and even before.
Drawing on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants, and on a wealth of new documentation, memoir literature, and oral history that has become available only in the past ten years, Rhodes recounts what actually happened in the final years of the Cold War that led to its dramatic end. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising—a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published October 9, 2007
76 people are currently reading
1331 people want to read
About the author
Richard Rhodes
100 books622 followersRichard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation among others.
He is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects to various audiences, including testifying before the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.
He is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects to various audiences, including testifying before the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.
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December 17, 2020This is a very apt title for a book that describes the overkill and accumulation of the weapons of mass destruction by the superpowers.
While one weapon of limited yield and of a very early type was enough to destroy Hiroshima,that was not deemed destructive enough.
Nuclear weapons had to be stockpiled.The quest was soon on for even deadlier weapons of genocide,i.e.thermonuclear weapons.These would kill indiscriminately,and never mind the distinction between military and non military targets.
Initially,the rationale was to use them as bargaining chips against the Soviets.The US military pushed for increasing the numbers.Each town of 25,000 in the Soviet Union was deemed a fair target.And on top of that,the US military wanted a three fold increase,in the number of warheads.
So,the Soviets had to respond and acquire a nuclear arsenal that turned out to be even larger.The Cuban missile crisis showed them that they were far behind,and they had to raise the stakes.
Nuclear weapons were cheap to produce,costing less than a fighter aircraft or a tank.The numbers on both sides soon grew to astronomical proportions.
Churchill stated,"with this nuclear arms race,all you are going to do is to make the rubble bounce."
Henry Kessinger asked,"with these numbers,what is strategic superiority ? It is meaningless."
Nuclear accidents like Chernobyl graphically demonstrate what can go wrong,with all this deadly technology.
While one weapon of limited yield and of a very early type was enough to destroy Hiroshima,that was not deemed destructive enough.
Nuclear weapons had to be stockpiled.The quest was soon on for even deadlier weapons of genocide,i.e.thermonuclear weapons.These would kill indiscriminately,and never mind the distinction between military and non military targets.
Initially,the rationale was to use them as bargaining chips against the Soviets.The US military pushed for increasing the numbers.Each town of 25,000 in the Soviet Union was deemed a fair target.And on top of that,the US military wanted a three fold increase,in the number of warheads.
So,the Soviets had to respond and acquire a nuclear arsenal that turned out to be even larger.The Cuban missile crisis showed them that they were far behind,and they had to raise the stakes.
Nuclear weapons were cheap to produce,costing less than a fighter aircraft or a tank.The numbers on both sides soon grew to astronomical proportions.
Churchill stated,"with this nuclear arms race,all you are going to do is to make the rubble bounce."
Henry Kessinger asked,"with these numbers,what is strategic superiority ? It is meaningless."
Nuclear accidents like Chernobyl graphically demonstrate what can go wrong,with all this deadly technology.
January 16, 2018
If this book is any indication of Rhodes’ ability to write about the race to create nuclear technology—and I assume it is given he won a Pulitzer for another book like this about making the first atom bomb—then I’ll be returning to his work often. Some of my favorite books about history or political issues are the ones that take issues I’m only somewhat interested in going in and then totally enthralling me. Perhaps Rhodes’ greatest strength is centering his work on the characters involved rather than the technology itself. This is less a book about what happened in the arms race and more about why it did with the people who it did. It’s pretty epic in scope but the majority of it focuses on Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev—he paints both of them in shades of nuanced critique and cautious praise. Really enjoyed it, even if the story it tells is all the more terrifying given how totally unnecessary so much of it was.
February 27, 2008
Rhodes offers a compelling, authoritative and often depressing account of the Cold War nuclear arms race. He challenges the prevailing American view that increased U.S. defense spending, along with SDI, drove the Soviets to the bargaining table. Rather, Gorbachev had long understood that the Soviet economy could not sustain the nation's outsized defense budget.
Rhodes does give Ronald Reagan credit for his determination to eliminate nuclear weapons, and notes that Reagan was haunted by the prospect of nuclear war. He signed the historic INF treaty with Gorbachev in spite of the the cabal of neoconservatives who surrounded him -- the same people who would lead us into war in Iraq.
The author also tries to give an accounting of what the nuclear arms race cost the U.S. While trillions of dollars were spent on unnecessary weapons systems, the nation's infrastructure and social safety net has gradually decayed. The Soviets, in other words, were not the only ones bankrupted by the Cold War.
Rhodes does give Ronald Reagan credit for his determination to eliminate nuclear weapons, and notes that Reagan was haunted by the prospect of nuclear war. He signed the historic INF treaty with Gorbachev in spite of the the cabal of neoconservatives who surrounded him -- the same people who would lead us into war in Iraq.
The author also tries to give an accounting of what the nuclear arms race cost the U.S. While trillions of dollars were spent on unnecessary weapons systems, the nation's infrastructure and social safety net has gradually decayed. The Soviets, in other words, were not the only ones bankrupted by the Cold War.
December 29, 2008
Richard Rhodes should stick to science writing. While he can lucidly explain a scientific idea in colloquial terms, he does not have the ability or the stomach to lay out policy arguments, as his moralizing gets in the way.
January 4, 2023
Interesting book, more of a critique in parts. The text is from 2007, so given all the things that happened since then, some parts do not fully stand test of time, mainly motivations of, and assumptions about, Russia.
December 14, 2020
So ends some 1700 pages re: the history of the nuclear arms race between the US and USSR.
August 21, 2015
At turns both fascinating and mind-numbingly dull. Rhodes describes the ascent of Gorbachev, including the Stalin purges that took his grandfather and the pathetic living conditions of the people, but otherwise portrays Soviet leaders as simple and honest guys just trying to do their jobs. By contrast, American leaders are portrayed as ideological, paranoid, and manipulative, and American presidents as too bored by discussions of arms control treaties to even look at them. According to Rhodes, all of this American paranoia was entirely without cause; any change in Soviet missiles was simply routine maintenance or small and simple upgrades, whereas American modifications were threatening provocations, continually upping the ante. He repeatedly says that American arms far outnumbered the Soviets by several magnitudes (downplaying Soviet deceptions that led to imbalances). All of this made for a bunch of nervous and jittery Soviet leaders - whose rhetoric was never fiery in contrast to American leaders - who lost a lot of sleep at night worrying and were forced into an arms race instead of just being able to feed their people and put a man on the moon. What? That doesn't sound like the USSR you thought you knew? Me neither.
I won't dispute that the number of nuclear missiles pointed at each other wasn't ridiculous. I won't dispute that a LOT of money and resources was wasted. I won't even dispute that American politicians are generally a sleazy lot. But I do dispute his characterizations of the Soviet leaders as peaceful and merely reacting to threats and provocations by the Americans.
A few other points Rhodes makes which I dispute:
- He blames the Reagan Administration for the tragedy when the Soviets shot down a Korean air liner with 260 passengers!
- He describes the American bombers in the 50s as a superior delivery system to that of the Soviets missiles, ignoring the fact that nuclear missiles would arrive in a matter of minutes whereas bombers would take hours to deliver their payload (never mind that bombers could be shot down).
- Gorbachev comes off as a peaceful genius with an agricultural background, whereas Reagan is a dim-witted religious fanatic. He mocks Reagan's surprise that the Soviets thought his rhetoric was serious (while calling Soviet leaders "candid"), and his hopes for SDI. He says Reagan did nothing to contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union - it was either happening on it's own or because of prior US persecution.
- He infers that Soviet intervention in countries that fell to communism was merely aiding well-meaning and like-minded people, whereas Americans were being "interventionist."
- Many of his quotes and citations are from people who were low level or outsiders, including many journalists and even an American defector. Quotes are selective and do not give a balanced perspective.
I found his discussion at the beginning of Soviet history fascinating. But his discussions of the United States were so one-sided and seemingly agenda driven as to ruin all credibility. He continually vilifies everything the Americans did, while painting the Soviets as unwillingly caught up in the arms race. I've heard great things about prior books by Rhodes, but this one has so soured me that I'm not sure I'll bother. I finally gave up about 3/4 through - what a waste of time. (I listened to the audiobook and the reader was fine, although he read with such a monotone voice that it certainly didn't help to make the material any more interesting).
I won't dispute that the number of nuclear missiles pointed at each other wasn't ridiculous. I won't dispute that a LOT of money and resources was wasted. I won't even dispute that American politicians are generally a sleazy lot. But I do dispute his characterizations of the Soviet leaders as peaceful and merely reacting to threats and provocations by the Americans.
A few other points Rhodes makes which I dispute:
- He blames the Reagan Administration for the tragedy when the Soviets shot down a Korean air liner with 260 passengers!
- He describes the American bombers in the 50s as a superior delivery system to that of the Soviets missiles, ignoring the fact that nuclear missiles would arrive in a matter of minutes whereas bombers would take hours to deliver their payload (never mind that bombers could be shot down).
- Gorbachev comes off as a peaceful genius with an agricultural background, whereas Reagan is a dim-witted religious fanatic. He mocks Reagan's surprise that the Soviets thought his rhetoric was serious (while calling Soviet leaders "candid"), and his hopes for SDI. He says Reagan did nothing to contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union - it was either happening on it's own or because of prior US persecution.
- He infers that Soviet intervention in countries that fell to communism was merely aiding well-meaning and like-minded people, whereas Americans were being "interventionist."
- Many of his quotes and citations are from people who were low level or outsiders, including many journalists and even an American defector. Quotes are selective and do not give a balanced perspective.
I found his discussion at the beginning of Soviet history fascinating. But his discussions of the United States were so one-sided and seemingly agenda driven as to ruin all credibility. He continually vilifies everything the Americans did, while painting the Soviets as unwillingly caught up in the arms race. I've heard great things about prior books by Rhodes, but this one has so soured me that I'm not sure I'll bother. I finally gave up about 3/4 through - what a waste of time. (I listened to the audiobook and the reader was fine, although he read with such a monotone voice that it certainly didn't help to make the material any more interesting).
January 23, 2012
From reading Rhodes’ first two books, The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, I was expecting an in-depth and objective history of the arms race, but while this book contains some interesting information, it feels light and suffused with stale political opinion. The text has the tone of liberal newspaper editorial pages of the 80’s mocking Reagan, Stars Wars, or U.S. militarism. There is little sense of striving for a deeper perspective.
While no one can discount Gorbachev’s courageous role in toning down the arms race, an obvious bias mars this book: the Soviets are constantly portrayed as honestly “just trying to catch up” after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and scheming Americans seem determined to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Many of Reagan’s advisors are painted as out and out villains, evil neocons with “penchants” (the author’s term) for various irrational policies. One, Paul Nitze, is pathetically portrayed as reacting to some insidious childhood neurosis. (And I wouldn’t know if that was true or not, but it does seem like cheap psychological speculation simply designed to belittle the person yet another time.). A tone of sarcastic mockery seems applied to Americans, but not Soviets, throughout the book. The overly-long biography of Gorbachev is an unneeded sidetrack but one apparently intended to build him up as the hero of the story. The concept that the United States essentially managed to waste more money on armaments than the Soviets, and thus helped drive the Soviet Union into the ground, is dismissed as a “triumphalist” fantasy; yet obviously it must had had some effect on the Soviet economy and the resulting breakup of the Soviet Union, and should have been given some consideration as one more factor in the mix.
It seems pretty obvious that both sides were out of their skulls with paranoia and that bad information and fearing the worst led both sides to keep scrambling for as many weapons and advantages as they could get, no matter how irrational the whole thing was. It truly is a miracle we did not escalate into nuclear war anytime from the 50’s on. The story is one of human beings under extreme stress trying to consider how to survive, and I don’t think we need “heroes and villains” as a storyline to explain what happened. In some twisted way everyone was “doing their best.”
Creating a story of heroes and villains also seems to require that the book end with a tidy resolution, as if Gorbachev somehow singlehandedly took care of the entire nuclear weapons problem. But the lack of trust and paranoia, though muted, do go on, along with the possibility of nuclear arms being acquired by other and even more irrational countries or terrorist organizations, and I think a more objective look at the entire process could help us understand the next challenges ahead in our still-nuclear world. I don’t see the point of anyone trying to either build the Reagan administration up or tear it down now, seemingly just to rehash and defend opinions formed in the 80’s. What happened, happened, and I would have preferred to read a true history without a political axe to grind. And I would have expected much deeper research and more appreciation of the insane complexity of the problem than I believe is manifested in this book.
While no one can discount Gorbachev’s courageous role in toning down the arms race, an obvious bias mars this book: the Soviets are constantly portrayed as honestly “just trying to catch up” after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and scheming Americans seem determined to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. Many of Reagan’s advisors are painted as out and out villains, evil neocons with “penchants” (the author’s term) for various irrational policies. One, Paul Nitze, is pathetically portrayed as reacting to some insidious childhood neurosis. (And I wouldn’t know if that was true or not, but it does seem like cheap psychological speculation simply designed to belittle the person yet another time.). A tone of sarcastic mockery seems applied to Americans, but not Soviets, throughout the book. The overly-long biography of Gorbachev is an unneeded sidetrack but one apparently intended to build him up as the hero of the story. The concept that the United States essentially managed to waste more money on armaments than the Soviets, and thus helped drive the Soviet Union into the ground, is dismissed as a “triumphalist” fantasy; yet obviously it must had had some effect on the Soviet economy and the resulting breakup of the Soviet Union, and should have been given some consideration as one more factor in the mix.
It seems pretty obvious that both sides were out of their skulls with paranoia and that bad information and fearing the worst led both sides to keep scrambling for as many weapons and advantages as they could get, no matter how irrational the whole thing was. It truly is a miracle we did not escalate into nuclear war anytime from the 50’s on. The story is one of human beings under extreme stress trying to consider how to survive, and I don’t think we need “heroes and villains” as a storyline to explain what happened. In some twisted way everyone was “doing their best.”
Creating a story of heroes and villains also seems to require that the book end with a tidy resolution, as if Gorbachev somehow singlehandedly took care of the entire nuclear weapons problem. But the lack of trust and paranoia, though muted, do go on, along with the possibility of nuclear arms being acquired by other and even more irrational countries or terrorist organizations, and I think a more objective look at the entire process could help us understand the next challenges ahead in our still-nuclear world. I don’t see the point of anyone trying to either build the Reagan administration up or tear it down now, seemingly just to rehash and defend opinions formed in the 80’s. What happened, happened, and I would have preferred to read a true history without a political axe to grind. And I would have expected much deeper research and more appreciation of the insane complexity of the problem than I believe is manifested in this book.
July 2, 2019
As Reagan and Gorbachev stood, diametrically opposed on the ban of space-based arms, a member of the Soviet delegation pleaded with the men, prophesying if future generations were to realize they had come within a single word, that day, of an agreement to rid the world of nuclear weapons but failed, that they would never be forgiven; and so we should not.
Arsenals of Folly is full of these moments, as if the history of attempted nuclear disarmament were lived dramatically enough for unembellished representation on the silver screen. And of course it was; the United States sent its top Hollywood star. Rhodes is not impressed by the head of state, but neither, apparently, was anyone else in Reagan's close vicinity. Aides laughed at his complete ignorance of international affairs upon taking office, and his briefings, typically written, were converted to film - the only medium through which the President could retain information - and Gorbachev wondered, in regards to Reagan's constant insistence that his Space Defense Initiative (SDI) was a direct analogy to an archetypal, primitive shield, if the man had, in a previous incarnation, invented the shield himself. The President maintained a dogmatic loyalty to the right of the United States to develop a "gas mask" in the form of SDI, another of his favorite analogies for "Star Wars," the more appropriate analogy of infinitely expensive lasers in space that was adopted colloquially, shouting at Gorbachev in that final closed door negotiation in Reykjavik, "I don't understand why you are opposed to us having a gas mask!"
Reagan, Rhodes makes clear, was a man incapable of thinking beyond the biblical complexities of allegory and parable, and thus failed to grasp the clear and inevitable path from space-based defensive armaments to space-based offensive weapons, thus dooming the considerable domestic maneuverings of his Soviet counterpart to prepare entrenched nuclear industrial interested for their disbandment. However pure Reagan's heart, in his seemingly sincerely expressed desire to rid the world of nuclear arms, it is a tragedy for humanity that the United States couldn't send someone more sound of mind.
As the United States teeters on the verge of war with Iran over another failing of a Republican president to embrace the safety of the world through practical diplomatic compromise, Arsenals of Folly's dissection of the end of the Cold War is an unsettling first chapter in the forty year abandonment of intellectualism in the Republican party.
Arsenals of Folly is full of these moments, as if the history of attempted nuclear disarmament were lived dramatically enough for unembellished representation on the silver screen. And of course it was; the United States sent its top Hollywood star. Rhodes is not impressed by the head of state, but neither, apparently, was anyone else in Reagan's close vicinity. Aides laughed at his complete ignorance of international affairs upon taking office, and his briefings, typically written, were converted to film - the only medium through which the President could retain information - and Gorbachev wondered, in regards to Reagan's constant insistence that his Space Defense Initiative (SDI) was a direct analogy to an archetypal, primitive shield, if the man had, in a previous incarnation, invented the shield himself. The President maintained a dogmatic loyalty to the right of the United States to develop a "gas mask" in the form of SDI, another of his favorite analogies for "Star Wars," the more appropriate analogy of infinitely expensive lasers in space that was adopted colloquially, shouting at Gorbachev in that final closed door negotiation in Reykjavik, "I don't understand why you are opposed to us having a gas mask!"
Reagan, Rhodes makes clear, was a man incapable of thinking beyond the biblical complexities of allegory and parable, and thus failed to grasp the clear and inevitable path from space-based defensive armaments to space-based offensive weapons, thus dooming the considerable domestic maneuverings of his Soviet counterpart to prepare entrenched nuclear industrial interested for their disbandment. However pure Reagan's heart, in his seemingly sincerely expressed desire to rid the world of nuclear arms, it is a tragedy for humanity that the United States couldn't send someone more sound of mind.
As the United States teeters on the verge of war with Iran over another failing of a Republican president to embrace the safety of the world through practical diplomatic compromise, Arsenals of Folly's dissection of the end of the Cold War is an unsettling first chapter in the forty year abandonment of intellectualism in the Republican party.
May 27, 2016
Well, now I'm on a Cold War reading kick.
Besides providing a bunch of interesting information and a perspective on the arms race that, though I found myself sympathizing with it, I'm not qualified to evaluate, this book did a remarkable job of making me feel frustrated. Frustrated with the neoconservatives (Richard Perle, Richard Pipes, and the whole gang at Team B and the Committee on the Present Danger) for their misjudgment of the Soviet threat and their misguided approach to the problems of a nuclear-equipped world. Frustrated with Reagan for his dogged commitment to SDI (Star Wars)—the only thing standing in the way of an agreement with Gorbachev to abolish nuclear weapons for good. Frustration with the whole sorry state of affairs and the costs it exacted from both nations. This seems like exactly the reaction a good book about the Cold War should provoke.
The narrative in Arsenals of Folly does come down rather harder on Reagan and the United States in general than on the Soviet Union—though this may be an artifact of the focus on Gorbachev and his inner circle. I'd be interested in reading a history that did the opposite; no doubt there's plenty of material to support such a viewpoint. But I find myself liking Richard Rhodes, and I'll certainly read his other two big works on nuclear history.
Besides providing a bunch of interesting information and a perspective on the arms race that, though I found myself sympathizing with it, I'm not qualified to evaluate, this book did a remarkable job of making me feel frustrated. Frustrated with the neoconservatives (Richard Perle, Richard Pipes, and the whole gang at Team B and the Committee on the Present Danger) for their misjudgment of the Soviet threat and their misguided approach to the problems of a nuclear-equipped world. Frustrated with Reagan for his dogged commitment to SDI (Star Wars)—the only thing standing in the way of an agreement with Gorbachev to abolish nuclear weapons for good. Frustration with the whole sorry state of affairs and the costs it exacted from both nations. This seems like exactly the reaction a good book about the Cold War should provoke.
The narrative in Arsenals of Folly does come down rather harder on Reagan and the United States in general than on the Soviet Union—though this may be an artifact of the focus on Gorbachev and his inner circle. I'd be interested in reading a history that did the opposite; no doubt there's plenty of material to support such a viewpoint. But I find myself liking Richard Rhodes, and I'll certainly read his other two big works on nuclear history.
December 28, 2010
This is the last volume in the author's trilogy about nuclear weapons; The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986) described the American atomic bomb project, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (1995) the Soviet atomic bomb project and both nations' thermonuclear bomb projects. This book is about the end of the nuclear arms race; it is closer to our time and its heroes are not Truman and Oppenheimer, but Gorbachev, Reagan, Richard Perle and Mathias Rust. Historian Richard Pipes, author of Russia under the Old Regime, makes a cameo appearance; the Ford administration brought him as an outside expert to judge the strategic intentions of the Soviet Union, which he claimed was far more belligerent and better armed than the CIA thought, which was itself an exaggeration of the true picture. When nuclear weapons expert Richard Garwin asked him about it, Pipes told him that the assessment was based on his "deep knowledge of the Russian soul." Now, how is a game theorist supposed to model this?
December 26, 2015
This book was amazing! It taught me quite a bit about the nuclear arms race and arms control diplomacy. One of the things I learned is that the Soviets weren't the bad guys in the arms race. We were! Don't get me wrong, they have a terrible human rights record. But who doesn't these days. I also learned that the neo-cons were dangerous long before the post-9/11 era! Cheney and Wolfowitz came so close to causing a nuclear war.
This book has been an education. More people should read it and have the wool torn from their eyes. Thank God for Gorbachev! Reagan didn't win the Cold War, he did!
This book has been an education. More people should read it and have the wool torn from their eyes. Thank God for Gorbachev! Reagan didn't win the Cold War, he did!
May 28, 2017
Nothing spectacular
March 30, 2013
Richard Rhodes has published two previous books, about the making of the Atomic Bomb and the making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Implicit in these subjects is the question of what happened after the events which brought these weapons of mass destruction into the world. The ensuing buildup of nuclear arsenals by the United States and the Soviet Union was the most significant development. Rhodes explores that subject in the current book. The main theme concerns the challenges of the Cold War from 1949 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December, 1991. Prominent is the Reagan-Gorbachev decade of the 1980's. Rhodes has a fourth book in this series completed and ready for publication in August 2010: "The Twilight of the Bombs", covering the post Cold War years. Current concerns are covered, including the former Soviet nuclear arsenal, nuclear proliferation, and North Korea.
The title "Arsenals of Folly" is Rhodes' recognition that he considers the direction taken by both superpowers for 42 years to be misguided, wasteful, and ultimately highly risky. The populace of both nations paid the bills for this massive military machinery through direct taxation and, indirectly, through huge deflections of funds from civilian needs in education, health, and city and transportation infrastructures. Forces in effect in both nations drove armament expenditures to levels far and above the need to deter the other from initiating nuclear hostilities.
Rhodes explains how the Soviet bureaucratic "perpetual-motion machine" ceaselessly turned out weapons in numbers far exceeding any defensive need. Don't be mistaken; the Soviet government wanted to have their own nuclear weapons to match those built in the United States, and wanted to be a nuclear power. However, as far back as Khruschev, Rhodes notes, there was high-level speculation about how ruinous it would be to use these weapons in a hot war (I guess this realization occurred sometime after Khruschev engaged in continued nuclear atmospheric testing and the placing of nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba?). The Soviet Union's centralized dominance of the economy by the military, however, assured that conventional and nuclear weapons would continue to be produced without question until, in 1985, when Gorbachev took over as General Secretary of the Politburo, the total world stockpile of nuclear weapons would exceed 50,000 bombs and warheads.
The United States never trailed in weapons production, but the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories were kept busy meeting the apparent prudent tendency which mirrored our Soviet counterparts in piling (potential) destruction upon destruction in the hope that enough would be sufficient. Rhodes does not hesitate to ascribe blame for the application of constant pressure of American stockpiling on the hardliners who whipped up fears within and outside the government.
The first significant blow to rationality in nuclear arming was the document prepared by Paul Nitze in order to give President Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson a means of threatening the post-World War II Soviet leadership from taking over Europe, and preventing the possibility of Germany rearming. "NSC-68" used the technique of "threat inflation" to "bludgeon" the collective minds of U.S. government military decision-makers into authorizing perpetual nuclear bomb stockpiling. NSC-68 set the philosophic tone of American Cold War rhetoric with its absolutes about the threat of annihilation looming from the Soviet Union's fanatical faith in the need to dominate the rest of the world. Harry Truman endorsed NSC-68 only after the scare of Soviet influence in Asia connected with the start of the Korean War caused U.S. defense expenditures to increase. The real legacy of NSC-68, Rhodes states, is the way it and the events in Korea caused the United States to follow the Soviets in defense procurement, that is, by uncoupling the defense budget from fiscal policy. Hereafter, the needs for armament would be assessed, then the money would be spent to meet the needs.
Nitze continued working in government under administrations of both parties. His next huge influence in policy occurred in his fight against those who wanted to scuttle an Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) system which would be deployed with the idea of keeping open the possibility of limited nuclear war. Nitze saw this resistance, which included scientific and military experts, to be tantamount to proposing surrender. Since, by 1969, he was out of government, he developed a committee of young and talented academics to be the policy-developers for influencing public opinion and lobbying government to maintain a strong nuclear posture, including opposition to the Nixon-Kissinger move toward detente with the Soviet Union. Rhodes called these individuals the "Sorcerers Apprentices", whose "trail of wreckage extends well into the present century" [p. 111:]. These future neoconservatives were Peter Wilson, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle. Perle was especially seen as an up-and-comer, after winning a position on the staff of Democratic hawk senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson.
The militant conservatives affected foreign policy in the 1970's with two initiatives. The first resulted in Gerald Ford's administration when an ever-compliant CIA Director, George H.W. Bush, with White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney's instrumental support, agreed to allow outside panels comprised of conservative nuclear hawks to submit intelligence assessments. These "Team B" assessments would differ from the CIA's in-house "Team A" assessments by significantly underestimating the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, in essence "conventionalizing" nuclear war. Their scientific guru was Edward Teller, the Manhattan Project scientist who influenced the government into building the hydrogen bomb. Teller, and the Team B leader, Richard Pipes, steered their group into advocating "deterrence through strength" [p. 123:], in contrast to Hans Bethe and other scientists who had advocated "deterrence through agreement" and who believed the destructiveness of nuclear weapons allowed them to deter war by being present in low numbers.
Bush's audacious method of allowing a politically motivated assessment team to undermine his own agency's staff was rejected by incoming President Jimmy Carter. The conservatives now adopted a strategy offered by Eugene Rostow, by forming a bipartisan citizens' lobby to fight detente, which was favored by Carter. The Committee on the Present Danger [CPD:] included Rostow, Nitze, Pipes, Dean Rusk, Richard Allen (a future Reagan national security adviser), future CIA director William Casey, future Reagan U.N. ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Teller, and, later, Ronald Reagan, among others.
All of the above serves as prelude to the heart of the book, which describes the often testy, but ultimately friendly relationship between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both had an instinctive abhorrence of the prospect of nuclear war.
The Soviet Union was in significant trouble by the mid-1980's and was in real danger of collapsing. This gave Gorbachev motivation to want to discuss treaties to limit arms building. This knowledge was lost to the intelligence community and the public, according to Rhodes, due to the false information being distributed through Team B and CPD. Reagan and Gorbachev had, however, met in Geneva in November, 1985, for their first attempt at discussing their security concerns. This meeting ended in frustration to both parties because the talks became stalled over Reagan's insistence for the right of the United States to build a Strategic Defense Initiative {SDI], or "Star Wars." Gorbachev protested that this theoretical defense system could be the basis of a new arms race in space. The following year, after the explosion of Reactor # 4 at Chernobyl, Gorbachev proposed a follow-up meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. Gorbachev vehemently tried to extricate SDI from an ambitious proposal he made to Reagan for total nuclear disarmament by the year 2000, even offering finally to allow SDI to proceed in laboratory testing. Reagan, who had originally learned about the theoretical possibility of directed-energy devices such as lasers, particle accelerators and microwave beams from Edward Teller in 1967, insured that the Reykjavik talks would end in anger and frustration when he followed advisor Richard Perle's advice to maintain his position on this unrealistic concept.
Rhodes has contempt for the "warrior intellectuals" and other policy wonks who have dominated dialogue of nuclear policy in both countries due to the inability of the political leaders to match their depth of knowledge about the numbers and capabilities of numerous delivery systems, missile throw-weights, and the like. He gives a lot of credit to Gorbachev for influencing the negotiating process to move beyond the stalemates that have characterized previous talks. Rhodes takes a lot of heat from mostly conservative critics who accuse him of being infatuated with this former disciple of Yuri Andropov. However, Gorbachev's adoption of Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik" 1960's-70's program in West Germany became influential in his ability to make progress in moving to reductions in the nuclear threat of the Cold War. In Gorbachav's interpretation of this concept, the task of insuring safety must be resolved politically, not by war or deterrence. It is guaranteed by the lowest, not the highest level of strategic balance, where WMD are entirely excluded.
A real dialog occurred with the U.S. when the hawkish John Poindexter, Perle, and Caspar Weinberger were replaced by Frank Carlucci and Colin Powell after Reagan's shameful Iran-Contra scandal. Secretary of State George Shultz gained the leverage to engage Gorbachev in negotiations which led to the signing of the INF treaty by Reagan and Gorbachev in the White House in late 1987. This treaty outlawed an entire category of nuclear weapons (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) by both sides in Europe. These weapons had been a direct threat at the populace of both the Western European democracies and the Warsaw Pact countries.
If political solutions were necessary for finding ways for peaceful coexistence in the nuclear age, it is perhaps not so surprising that this book shows Rhodes' political bias much more than in earlier books. He brings out the facts of the political maneuverings which brought so many of the conservatives and their progeny, the neocons, and their personal agendas to prominence. Sometimes he is very obvious, however, in his personal assessment of their motives, as in the linking of the influence over the CIA by the outside "B" teams with the neocons' misuse of the CIA in the runup to the Gulf War in 2003. In another instance, he relates the attempts of Gorbachev to get his "new thinking" translated into dialog with the U.S. in the Bush 41 administration, when Secretary of Defense Cheney joined up with Paul Wolfowitz' deputies to try to keep skeptical of Gorbachev's motives and push for regime change in the Soviet Union, foreshadowing Bush 43's rhetoric in Iraq in 2004. Nevertheless, the landmark Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty took place at this time. This treaty required the limiting of NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional military hardware to equivalent levels, meaning in practical terms that whole divisions of Warsaw Pact tanks, artillery and other weapons were scrapped. Rhodes rightly calls this a central pillar (along with INF obviously) of European security.
A way had been found by the two presidents, Bush 41 and Gorbachev, to see eye to eye on committing to important steps toward eventual disarmament, despite the awkward first steps at Geneva and Reykjavik, and political pressures at home in Washington and Moscow. The last chapter is still to be written on the process begun in July, 1991, when Bush and Gorbachev signed START I. The result was an agreement by both countries to limit themselves to 6,000 verifyable nuclear warheads and 1,600 nuclear delivery vehicles each. The complete threat of nuclear war was lessened considerably by this treaty, and by the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan's apologists have created a mythology which gives Reagan credit for bringing about the collapse of the U.S.S.R. through unrelenting pressure to spend the "Evil Empire's" final resources to vainly try to maintain military parity with the United States. Rhodes shows how internal pressures in the Soviet Union, fueled by nationalism and ethnic identity, pulled the old order apart. As far as spending the Russians into poverty, Rhodes shows that the U.S.S.R. had completed its arms buildup of the 1970's before Reagan's presidency in 1981, and that Reagan's unprecedented peacetime trillion dollar defense budget created extreme economic hardship in the United States rather than the U.S.S.R. Obviously, this issue will be argued for a long time to come. Rhodes contributes to this debate by challenging what previously was common knowledge and adding fresh analysis to this era of American history.
The title "Arsenals of Folly" is Rhodes' recognition that he considers the direction taken by both superpowers for 42 years to be misguided, wasteful, and ultimately highly risky. The populace of both nations paid the bills for this massive military machinery through direct taxation and, indirectly, through huge deflections of funds from civilian needs in education, health, and city and transportation infrastructures. Forces in effect in both nations drove armament expenditures to levels far and above the need to deter the other from initiating nuclear hostilities.
Rhodes explains how the Soviet bureaucratic "perpetual-motion machine" ceaselessly turned out weapons in numbers far exceeding any defensive need. Don't be mistaken; the Soviet government wanted to have their own nuclear weapons to match those built in the United States, and wanted to be a nuclear power. However, as far back as Khruschev, Rhodes notes, there was high-level speculation about how ruinous it would be to use these weapons in a hot war (I guess this realization occurred sometime after Khruschev engaged in continued nuclear atmospheric testing and the placing of nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba?). The Soviet Union's centralized dominance of the economy by the military, however, assured that conventional and nuclear weapons would continue to be produced without question until, in 1985, when Gorbachev took over as General Secretary of the Politburo, the total world stockpile of nuclear weapons would exceed 50,000 bombs and warheads.
The United States never trailed in weapons production, but the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories were kept busy meeting the apparent prudent tendency which mirrored our Soviet counterparts in piling (potential) destruction upon destruction in the hope that enough would be sufficient. Rhodes does not hesitate to ascribe blame for the application of constant pressure of American stockpiling on the hardliners who whipped up fears within and outside the government.
The first significant blow to rationality in nuclear arming was the document prepared by Paul Nitze in order to give President Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson a means of threatening the post-World War II Soviet leadership from taking over Europe, and preventing the possibility of Germany rearming. "NSC-68" used the technique of "threat inflation" to "bludgeon" the collective minds of U.S. government military decision-makers into authorizing perpetual nuclear bomb stockpiling. NSC-68 set the philosophic tone of American Cold War rhetoric with its absolutes about the threat of annihilation looming from the Soviet Union's fanatical faith in the need to dominate the rest of the world. Harry Truman endorsed NSC-68 only after the scare of Soviet influence in Asia connected with the start of the Korean War caused U.S. defense expenditures to increase. The real legacy of NSC-68, Rhodes states, is the way it and the events in Korea caused the United States to follow the Soviets in defense procurement, that is, by uncoupling the defense budget from fiscal policy. Hereafter, the needs for armament would be assessed, then the money would be spent to meet the needs.
Nitze continued working in government under administrations of both parties. His next huge influence in policy occurred in his fight against those who wanted to scuttle an Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) system which would be deployed with the idea of keeping open the possibility of limited nuclear war. Nitze saw this resistance, which included scientific and military experts, to be tantamount to proposing surrender. Since, by 1969, he was out of government, he developed a committee of young and talented academics to be the policy-developers for influencing public opinion and lobbying government to maintain a strong nuclear posture, including opposition to the Nixon-Kissinger move toward detente with the Soviet Union. Rhodes called these individuals the "Sorcerers Apprentices", whose "trail of wreckage extends well into the present century" [p. 111:]. These future neoconservatives were Peter Wilson, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle. Perle was especially seen as an up-and-comer, after winning a position on the staff of Democratic hawk senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson.
The militant conservatives affected foreign policy in the 1970's with two initiatives. The first resulted in Gerald Ford's administration when an ever-compliant CIA Director, George H.W. Bush, with White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney's instrumental support, agreed to allow outside panels comprised of conservative nuclear hawks to submit intelligence assessments. These "Team B" assessments would differ from the CIA's in-house "Team A" assessments by significantly underestimating the destructiveness of nuclear weapons, in essence "conventionalizing" nuclear war. Their scientific guru was Edward Teller, the Manhattan Project scientist who influenced the government into building the hydrogen bomb. Teller, and the Team B leader, Richard Pipes, steered their group into advocating "deterrence through strength" [p. 123:], in contrast to Hans Bethe and other scientists who had advocated "deterrence through agreement" and who believed the destructiveness of nuclear weapons allowed them to deter war by being present in low numbers.
Bush's audacious method of allowing a politically motivated assessment team to undermine his own agency's staff was rejected by incoming President Jimmy Carter. The conservatives now adopted a strategy offered by Eugene Rostow, by forming a bipartisan citizens' lobby to fight detente, which was favored by Carter. The Committee on the Present Danger [CPD:] included Rostow, Nitze, Pipes, Dean Rusk, Richard Allen (a future Reagan national security adviser), future CIA director William Casey, future Reagan U.N. ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Teller, and, later, Ronald Reagan, among others.
All of the above serves as prelude to the heart of the book, which describes the often testy, but ultimately friendly relationship between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both had an instinctive abhorrence of the prospect of nuclear war.
The Soviet Union was in significant trouble by the mid-1980's and was in real danger of collapsing. This gave Gorbachev motivation to want to discuss treaties to limit arms building. This knowledge was lost to the intelligence community and the public, according to Rhodes, due to the false information being distributed through Team B and CPD. Reagan and Gorbachev had, however, met in Geneva in November, 1985, for their first attempt at discussing their security concerns. This meeting ended in frustration to both parties because the talks became stalled over Reagan's insistence for the right of the United States to build a Strategic Defense Initiative {SDI], or "Star Wars." Gorbachev protested that this theoretical defense system could be the basis of a new arms race in space. The following year, after the explosion of Reactor # 4 at Chernobyl, Gorbachev proposed a follow-up meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. Gorbachev vehemently tried to extricate SDI from an ambitious proposal he made to Reagan for total nuclear disarmament by the year 2000, even offering finally to allow SDI to proceed in laboratory testing. Reagan, who had originally learned about the theoretical possibility of directed-energy devices such as lasers, particle accelerators and microwave beams from Edward Teller in 1967, insured that the Reykjavik talks would end in anger and frustration when he followed advisor Richard Perle's advice to maintain his position on this unrealistic concept.
Rhodes has contempt for the "warrior intellectuals" and other policy wonks who have dominated dialogue of nuclear policy in both countries due to the inability of the political leaders to match their depth of knowledge about the numbers and capabilities of numerous delivery systems, missile throw-weights, and the like. He gives a lot of credit to Gorbachev for influencing the negotiating process to move beyond the stalemates that have characterized previous talks. Rhodes takes a lot of heat from mostly conservative critics who accuse him of being infatuated with this former disciple of Yuri Andropov. However, Gorbachev's adoption of Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik" 1960's-70's program in West Germany became influential in his ability to make progress in moving to reductions in the nuclear threat of the Cold War. In Gorbachav's interpretation of this concept, the task of insuring safety must be resolved politically, not by war or deterrence. It is guaranteed by the lowest, not the highest level of strategic balance, where WMD are entirely excluded.
A real dialog occurred with the U.S. when the hawkish John Poindexter, Perle, and Caspar Weinberger were replaced by Frank Carlucci and Colin Powell after Reagan's shameful Iran-Contra scandal. Secretary of State George Shultz gained the leverage to engage Gorbachev in negotiations which led to the signing of the INF treaty by Reagan and Gorbachev in the White House in late 1987. This treaty outlawed an entire category of nuclear weapons (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) by both sides in Europe. These weapons had been a direct threat at the populace of both the Western European democracies and the Warsaw Pact countries.
If political solutions were necessary for finding ways for peaceful coexistence in the nuclear age, it is perhaps not so surprising that this book shows Rhodes' political bias much more than in earlier books. He brings out the facts of the political maneuverings which brought so many of the conservatives and their progeny, the neocons, and their personal agendas to prominence. Sometimes he is very obvious, however, in his personal assessment of their motives, as in the linking of the influence over the CIA by the outside "B" teams with the neocons' misuse of the CIA in the runup to the Gulf War in 2003. In another instance, he relates the attempts of Gorbachev to get his "new thinking" translated into dialog with the U.S. in the Bush 41 administration, when Secretary of Defense Cheney joined up with Paul Wolfowitz' deputies to try to keep skeptical of Gorbachev's motives and push for regime change in the Soviet Union, foreshadowing Bush 43's rhetoric in Iraq in 2004. Nevertheless, the landmark Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty took place at this time. This treaty required the limiting of NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional military hardware to equivalent levels, meaning in practical terms that whole divisions of Warsaw Pact tanks, artillery and other weapons were scrapped. Rhodes rightly calls this a central pillar (along with INF obviously) of European security.
A way had been found by the two presidents, Bush 41 and Gorbachev, to see eye to eye on committing to important steps toward eventual disarmament, despite the awkward first steps at Geneva and Reykjavik, and political pressures at home in Washington and Moscow. The last chapter is still to be written on the process begun in July, 1991, when Bush and Gorbachev signed START I. The result was an agreement by both countries to limit themselves to 6,000 verifyable nuclear warheads and 1,600 nuclear delivery vehicles each. The complete threat of nuclear war was lessened considerably by this treaty, and by the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan's apologists have created a mythology which gives Reagan credit for bringing about the collapse of the U.S.S.R. through unrelenting pressure to spend the "Evil Empire's" final resources to vainly try to maintain military parity with the United States. Rhodes shows how internal pressures in the Soviet Union, fueled by nationalism and ethnic identity, pulled the old order apart. As far as spending the Russians into poverty, Rhodes shows that the U.S.S.R. had completed its arms buildup of the 1970's before Reagan's presidency in 1981, and that Reagan's unprecedented peacetime trillion dollar defense budget created extreme economic hardship in the United States rather than the U.S.S.R. Obviously, this issue will be argued for a long time to come. Rhodes contributes to this debate by challenging what previously was common knowledge and adding fresh analysis to this era of American history.
September 26, 2024
After rereading Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, I started to (I thought) reread this. However, I quickly discovered that this had been sitting on my shelf unread for all these years! I am certainly glad I realized this and finally got to read this excellent history of the cold war - and the end of the cold war. From a 2024 perspective, it is amazing how many of the characters mentioned continued to have major influence on USA policy well after the end of the cold war, as we learn in The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons. I always admired Mikhail Gorbachev, and this book increased my admiration. I have always been ambivalent about Ronald Reagan - and I still feel that way. Frankly, I am glad his efforts started the world down the path to ending the nuclear war, but I strongly feel that a better smarter effort on his part might have led us to the end sooner, as well as have lead to less chaos in eastern Europe. As I write this, I fell that the threat of nuclear weapon usage in Ukraine is unacceptably high, and that the threat of nuclear war is not yet over. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to better understand the world we live in.
November 16, 2021
By the author of my 5 Star reviewed The Making of the Atomic Bomb comes this book about the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States. The book presents a detailed account of the build up of nuclear arms, the gamesmanship between the USA and USSR, the rise of Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev, and his vision that the USSR needed to stand down from nuclear weapons so that the people of the Soviet Union would have a better domestic life.
I enjoyed learning about the gamesmanship between President Regan and Gorbachev at the various summits. A downside is that I felt that the author didn’t think much of Regan nor give him much credit for winning the Cold War. The author’s point of view is that the USSR was going to fall anyway and that Regan’s inartful ideas didn’t contribute much. I would like to read a book that gives Regan more credit to see which version is more credible to me.
I gained a greater appreciation of Gorbachev, who seemed inspired to institute reforms that ultimately led to a thawing in the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. I would enjoy learning more about the fall of the Soviet Union. It is too bad that Russia now seems bent on retaining the evil empire mantle that the USSR previously held.
This is a good, not great, book. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. It is worthy of 4 stars.
I enjoyed learning about the gamesmanship between President Regan and Gorbachev at the various summits. A downside is that I felt that the author didn’t think much of Regan nor give him much credit for winning the Cold War. The author’s point of view is that the USSR was going to fall anyway and that Regan’s inartful ideas didn’t contribute much. I would like to read a book that gives Regan more credit to see which version is more credible to me.
I gained a greater appreciation of Gorbachev, who seemed inspired to institute reforms that ultimately led to a thawing in the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. I would enjoy learning more about the fall of the Soviet Union. It is too bad that Russia now seems bent on retaining the evil empire mantle that the USSR previously held.
This is a good, not great, book. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. It is worthy of 4 stars.
February 18, 2020
Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race by Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes covers the postwar nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States. From the winding down of WWII and the military and political jockeying for positions through the meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev, the author explores a number of close calls that could have had disastrous effects as well as documented facts showing how much the USSR and USA misunderstood each other and their intentions. This is a frightening look behind the curtain of global politics on a grand scale. The author presents the various leaders on both sides showing how their characters and beliefs led them to the decisions that they made. The book draws on personal interviews of the top participants on both sides, recently available documentation, memoirs, etc, to explain the dramatic collapse of the Cold War. Well written and held my interest throughout. Many mysteries are explain within these pages.
November 12, 2021
This work challenges the greater American narrative about the Cold War while drawing on the work of leading scholars in the field. Rhodes discusses that one Sovietologist predicted the collapse of the USSR due to internal pressures in the 50s. He cites many scholars who challenge the assumption that nuclear weapons make us safer, with one scholar even stating that nuclear weapons did not stop the escalation of many conflicts. This work also showed how close Gorbachev and Reagan came to having major reductions in nuclear arms, but could not quite cross the finish line due to a disagreement on SDI. Overall, very good work that most Americans should read who are interested in this topic. The book is in some places a high level overview, as it covers many years and misses an opportunity to discuss items like the Czar Bomb on the Soviet side.
June 9, 2017
The book's main focus is the meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev and the ending of the nuclear arms race. The book opens with a harrowing account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine and later suggests that this disaster influenced Gorbachev's determination to end the arms race. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the American's determination not to give any ground to the point that the deal was almost scuttled. The hawkish advisors around Reagan are familiar names: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Pearle (perhaps the worst of the bunch). I did find the absence of the influence of the anti-nuclear movement a bit of a weakness, as well as a look at the wider Cold War. On balance though, this is a v very good read.
December 10, 2018
The third in a series of 4, is focused on the years of the cold war. Rhodes does an outstanding job of covering the meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in Iceland in 1986. This book brought to my attention the threat inflation created within the United States and how this inflation created an almost run away arms race. Looking back on it all now, makes one wonder why Reagan was so committed to SDI, seeing that is a science fiction fantasy and a failure. If Reagan had conceded with SDI and signed the agreement Iceland, what might have come of that?
All in all, this book is a tad slower that the previous too novels but that is to be expected given the subject matter. Still tho, a great book. And now onto the 4th and final one.
All in all, this book is a tad slower that the previous too novels but that is to be expected given the subject matter. Still tho, a great book. And now onto the 4th and final one.
July 27, 2020
What I enjoyed most about this book are the interviews the author conducted with high-level participants on both sides of the arms race and negotiations. What I learned that was most surprising was how close Reagan and Gorbachev came to complete mutual nuclear disarmament - before falling apart on the opinion of one of Reagan's advisors. The author makes a strong case for why nuclear weapons were never needed at the scale to which they were stockpiled but were pursued anyway over threat inflation. I think the author gives too much credit to the (pre)neocons, and not enough to the fog of (cold) war. Regardless, an excellently researched book with a fantastic narrative.
July 14, 2021
Fascinating book, and a great follow-up to his earlier two nuke books, but man is it bewildering to start the first 60 pages with an account of Chernobyl and a bio of Gorbachev. Just start it chronologically in the 1960s! It turns out he’s really not setting anything up for later, or accomplishing anything that couldn’t have been incorporated into the book when he does arrive back in the ‘80s later on. It just comes off as noodling around, or an abridged and aborted separate book that was folded into this one.
Otherwise great, and an excellent bridge between The Doomsday Machine and The Dead Hand in terms of nuclear strategy and proliferation. Highly recommended.
Otherwise great, and an excellent bridge between The Doomsday Machine and The Dead Hand in terms of nuclear strategy and proliferation. Highly recommended.
November 9, 2025
An excellent book, a "forensic study", if you will, on how the USA and the USSR sleepwalked into a +75,000 warhead nightmare.
A lot of the book is rightly dedicated to the Reagan-Gorbachev meetings and exchanges. Like with "The Main Enemy", this is a book that discusses the lost opportunity to abolish nuclear weapons (sabotaged by the US hawk Richard Perle).
It's a page turner and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes happenings of the most important meetings on the world stage in the 1980s.
Back then, we managed to dodge the proverbial nuclear bullet. We won't be always lucky like that.
A must read for any Cold War aficionado!
A lot of the book is rightly dedicated to the Reagan-Gorbachev meetings and exchanges. Like with "The Main Enemy", this is a book that discusses the lost opportunity to abolish nuclear weapons (sabotaged by the US hawk Richard Perle).
It's a page turner and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes happenings of the most important meetings on the world stage in the 1980s.
Back then, we managed to dodge the proverbial nuclear bullet. We won't be always lucky like that.
A must read for any Cold War aficionado!
August 12, 2018
How the Cold War Ended
This is one AMAZING book!!! How a poor farmer from the Soviet Union (why didn’t you autocomplete reference soviet?) ended the Cold War. The details of how the USSR and the US sparred each other for almost 50 years was amazing. Most people think we were close to nuclear war with the Cuban middle crisis - it was actual the Able Archer war games in the 1980’s we almost became a footnote in Earths history. You will have to read the book to see how amazingly close the world almost ended.
This is one AMAZING book!!! How a poor farmer from the Soviet Union (why didn’t you autocomplete reference soviet?) ended the Cold War. The details of how the USSR and the US sparred each other for almost 50 years was amazing. Most people think we were close to nuclear war with the Cuban middle crisis - it was actual the Able Archer war games in the 1980’s we almost became a footnote in Earths history. You will have to read the book to see how amazingly close the world almost ended.
March 13, 2022
(Audiobook) I generally like Rhodes’ work, but I didn’t find this his best. The main reason, it had trouble defining what it was focusing on. Was it the nuclear arms race between the USA and the USSR, or the political career of Gorbachev, or what? Was hard to figure the central theme. There were plenty of good accounts, but perhaps if it just focused on the 1980s interactions of the USSR and USA looking to engage in nuclear disarmament, then the work would rate higher. Otherwise, it was hard to figure out the central theme of this work.
March 18, 2025
A really good job on explaining nuclear history post WW2 and the context and background behind the leaders who influenced the nuclear weapons buildup. It explains the impact of Chernobyl and the arms race and arms control that ultimately led to the Reagan and Gorbachev summits. There’s a subtle (or not so subtle) undertone of the folly of nuclear weapons but also with all the complexity and difficulty of navigating the strategy of deterrence. Interesting follow up to Rhodes’ Making of the Atomic Bomb
July 27, 2017
All I know is, I have a whole new perspective on Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev. They are not the two dimensional people most of us think they are. Their choices and philosophies have shaped the world as we know it today. We will never know the fear of a nuclear holocaust the way people knew it before the 80s.
February 28, 2020
A really interesting series of narratives, but I took away a star for how disjointed it felt throughout the first quarter of the book. I genuinely thought there could have been a clerical error and I had accidentally taken out a book about Chernobyl. Eventually, it settled into a great read, but it was tough sledding there at the beginning.
May 20, 2018
Another great Rhodes read
Arsenals of Folly explores the silliness and outright foolishness of the nuclear arms buildup. The third book I've read by Rhodes and certainly not the last
Arsenals of Folly explores the silliness and outright foolishness of the nuclear arms buildup. The third book I've read by Rhodes and certainly not the last
June 29, 2023
A fascinating examination of the misperceptions, flawed assessments, and outright lies that spurred the acceleration of the Cold War nuclear arms race. This book hammers home (yet again) that the world was lucky to survive the Cold War.
The interpersonal dynamics between Reagan and Gorbachev are on full display here, proving the importance of relationships in high stakes diplomacy where cold calculations of national interests supposedly rule the day.
Interestingly, the author argues convincingly against the long-held view that the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was part of a deliberate plan to force the USSR into bankruptcy.
The interpersonal dynamics between Reagan and Gorbachev are on full display here, proving the importance of relationships in high stakes diplomacy where cold calculations of national interests supposedly rule the day.
Interestingly, the author argues convincingly against the long-held view that the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was part of a deliberate plan to force the USSR into bankruptcy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews