The Cold War: History in an Hour by Rupert Colley

Author:Rupert Colley [Colley, Rupert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Ex-Actor: ‘Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root’

In January 1981, a few days short of his seventieth birthday, Ronald Reagan became the oldest president in American history. No believer in détente, which he considered a mere continuation of the status quo, Reagan immediately went on the offensive, increasing military spending and calling the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire’. He considered negotiations with the Soviet Union a sign of feebleness, and criticized the lack of free elections in eastern Europe: ‘Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root’. Reagan initiated a defensive anti-missile system in space, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or, as it was nicknamed, ‘Star Wars’). The SDIs could neutralize incoming missiles, while leaving the USA’s own offensive missiles free to reach their targets. So, although labelled ‘defensive’, the Soviet Union regarded SDIs as an offensive development because, in effect, Star Wars destroyed the balance of Mutually Assured Destruction that had kept the superpowers in check for over thirty years.

Unlike his predecessors, containment of communism wasn’t enough for Reagan he wanted to destroy it wherever possible. The ‘Reagan Doctrine’ provided support for anti-communist fighters throughout the world. He increased military aid to the Afghan rebels still fighting the Soviets. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, a left-wing liberation movement backed by Cuba, had in 1979 disposed of the brutal but pro-American regime. Reagan went on the attack against the Sandinistas, providing military assistance to the counter-revolutionaries, the Contras.

In 1983, Reagan sent troops on to the Caribbean island of Grenada, following the assassination of their prime minister, in order to prevent the island from becoming what Reagan called a ‘Soviet colony’. Margaret Thatcher protested at the invasion of a Commonwealth country. But, having established a democratically elected regime, the USA withdrew.

On 1 September 1983, a Soviet fighter plane shot down a Korean civilian airliner flying over its airspace, killing the 269 passengers on board, including 63 Americans. Reagan went on the offensive, accusing the Soviets of terrorism. The delayed response from the Kremlin seemed to confirm their guilt, but the Soviet pilot had followed correct protocol and despite issuing several warnings, including a warning shot, received no response from the airliner. Concluding that it was a spy plane, he followed orders and shot it down. The episode deteriorated further the poor relations between the superpowers and a few weeks later the Soviets walked out of the next round of arms reduction talks. The Cold War was the coldest it had been for twenty years. When, in November 1983, NATO forces in Europe underwent a nuclear war exercise, the Kremlin genuinely believed the world was on the eve of a Third World War.

That the Soviet leaders should even think along these lines shocked Reagan who, as a result, began talking of meeting the Soviets halfway. He began to see the conflict in terms of the ordinary citizens, ‘the Ivan and Anya and the Jim and Sally’, who had more in common within their domestic lives than to worry about their respective governments and their differing ideologies.

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