On Aug. 1, 2025, the Workplace of the Historian printed Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1, which centered on President Ronald Reagan’s pursuit of the Strategic Protection Initiative and Strategic Modernization Program.
What can we study from this newly launched quantity of the Overseas Relations of america sequence? The most important takeaway is that questions on conflict and peace within the nuclear age stay so vital. Lots of the folks debating nuclear coverage right this moment had been born after Reagan was president. Others who grew up when he was president might not have an correct sense of what he needed to attain. Furthermore, the challenges dealing with policymakers right this moment about strategic stability echo related conversations from the previous. Particularly within the context of President Donald Trump’s dedication to construct a “Golden Dome” and modernize U.S. strategic forces, grappling with the historical past of the Reagan period may help policymakers produce outcomes that preserve America secure. As Mark Twain is rumored to have mentioned: “Historical past doesn’t repeat, but it surely does rhyme.”
The Overseas Relations of america sequence presents the official documentary historic report of key international coverage choices and vital diplomatic exercise of the U.S. authorities. I began compiling this newest quantity as a historian within the Division of State’s Workplace of the Historian nearly precisely 14 years in the past. One night in 2015 — on my approach dwelling from the workplace having spent the day engaged on it — I accosted former Nationwide Safety Advisor Bud McFarlane within the produce part of the Foggy Backside Complete Meals. And I peppered him with questions on mounted land-based intercontinental missiles with a number of independently targetable reentry automobiles: “May they ever be stabilizing?” I requested. “Maybe not,” he responded — but I would wish to take this up with the U.S. Air Power.
The Overseas Relations of america Sequence and You
It isn’t my job to inform the U.S. Air Power (or House Power) what to do. Neither is it my job to inform you what you need to study. In response to 22 U.S. Code § 4351, the aim of the Overseas Relations of america sequence is to offer “a radical, correct, and dependable documentary report of main United States international coverage choices and important United States diplomatic exercise.” If my colleagues and I are doing our jobs, then we’re empowering you to give you your personal clarification of how the Reagan administration pursued the Strategic Protection Initiative and modernization of strategic forces to advance general U.S. goals within the second half of the Eighties. Remember that that is the twelfth Reagan quantity to be launched out of 52 complete volumes so there are much more on the way in which.
Three terrific books may help to offer perception into the geopolitical and historic context swirling across the Reagan White Home. Will Inboden’s The Peacemaker Ronald Reagan, the Chilly Battle, and the World on the Brink and Max Boot’s Reagan: His Life and Legend provide competing interpretations about Reagan. The previous focuses practically totally on his eight years as president, whereas the latter is a full-scale biography. In his masterful Gorbachev: His Life and Occasions, William Taubman downplays the function of the U.S. navy buildup in shaping Gorbachev’s actions. I like to recommend every of those books.
The Overseas Relations of america sequence may help you develop your personal argument about Ronald Reagan, nuclear weapons, and the previous few years of the Chilly Battle. Attempt using a mixture of key phrase and chronological searches that reduce throughout volumes. As an illustration, listed here are all of the launched paperwork from one month earlier than the beginning of the Reykjavik Summit of Oct. 11–12, 1986 — the place Reagan and Gorbachev got here near a blockbuster nuclear settlement — to at least one month after it ended. You can even use the ChatGPT 5 mannequin as a digital analysis assistant to serve up these main paperwork alongside information experiences from this era. How do the declassified White Home data examine with what the White Home press corps was reporting? This is only one of a large number of entry factors to start out your analysis.
Relying on how deep you need to dive, you can too go to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Consider and interrogate main U.S. paperwork and examine them to the Soviet paperwork that Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya embrace in The Final Superpower Summits: Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush. Conversations that Ended the Chilly Battle. Take into account as effectively Susan Colbourn’s Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Almost Destroyed NATO and Sergey Radchenko’s To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Chilly Battle Bid for International Energy. To what extent had been Reagan’s concepts about nuclear weapons as vital as alliance dynamics or the lengthy arc of Soviet leaders’ ambitions all through the Chilly Battle? My level right here is that you should utilize the Overseas Relations of america sequence to have interaction in a critical debate with main students on extra equal footing.
My Personal Tackle Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1
Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1 confirms Ronald Reagan’s deep loathing of nuclear weapons and his dedication to abolishing them. He expressed this publicly, for example, in his deal with to the Japanese Weight loss plan on Nov. 3, 1983, when he acknowledged: “I do know I converse for folks in all places after I say our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons might be banished from the face of the Earth.” Once I first learn Paul Lettow’s 2006 Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, I used to be skeptical. But the extra I’ve dug into the data over the previous 20 years, the extra I’m satisfied. President Reagan’s “objective is the full elimination of nuclear weapons,” in accordance with declassified minutes of a Nationwide Safety Planning Group assembly on Dec. 17, 1984.
Nonetheless, turning Reagan’s imaginative and prescient into actuality required a transparent plan of motion. And as I contend elsewhere, across the time of that assembly — shortly after the president’s reelection in November 1984 — Particular Advisor to the President and Secretary of State Paul Nitze put ahead a “strategic idea” to maneuver in three phases from strategic offenses to strategic defenses. Nitze was doubtful concerning the Strategic Protection Initiative and (a minimum of by the mid-Eighties) the prospect of nuclear abolition. But, he was pleased with his personal function in crafting the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; he needed to maintain it and needed to attain a sturdy strategic offensive arms discount settlement.
Finally, each Reagan’s ambition and Nitze’s bureaucratic savvy — on high of Gorbachev’s aspirations to cut back and even get rid of nuclear weapons — proved to be important towards negotiating the December 1987 Intermediate Vary Nuclear Forces Treaty and that very same month a fundamental system for what turned the 1991 Strategic Arms Discount Treaty. That’s my interpretation of how we bought from December 1984 to December 1987.
What’s New in Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1
This quantity reveals how the Division of Protection and intelligence group reacted to Reagan’s proposals within the aftermath of the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit. On Nov. 3, the president signed Nationwide Safety Choice Directive 250, “Put up-Reykjavik Comply with-Up,” during which he directed the Joint Chiefs of Workers and Central Intelligence Company to think about the alternatives and prices related to eliminating all fast-flying intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles — inside a decade.
Nationwide Safety Choice Directive 250 was beforehand declassified partially — the Overseas Relations of america model is launched in full. Newly declassified and out there as effectively are paperwork displaying how the Joint Chiefs of Workers and Central Intelligence Company carried out President Reagan’s tasking — they had been skeptical. Of their quarterly assembly with President Reagan on Dec. 19, 1986, Chairman William Crowe and the remainder of the Joint Chiefs of Workers took turns accentuating the negatives.
Chief of Naval Operations Carlisle Trost “famous that a lot of the Soviet [nuclear attack submarine] pressure is dedicated to defending bastions for SSBNs [Ship, Submersible, Ballistic, Nuclear]. Thus, a zero ballistic missile regime would free-up Soviet [nuclear attack submarines] for different missions.” Military Chief of Workers John A. Wickham “famous that the present modernization program for floor forces is simply about 30 p.c full and that, to be accomplished with the ten-year transition interval, it must be accelerated at an estimated value of $180 billion.” Commandant of the Marine Corps Paul X. Kelley “famous that to this point, prolonged deterrence of the ‘nuclear umbrella’ has ‘actually relied on ballistic missiles.’ Any untimely shift away from ballistic missiles would stress each standard capabilities and regional balances.” And Gen. Kelley “was unsure we might actually implement the required pressure enhancements outlined by the opposite Chiefs.”
Contemplating this pushback, Reagan insisted he was critical. “[A]t the tip of Reykjavik we had been speaking ballistics, and so they [the Soviets] introduced up the thought of all nuclear weapons,” the president noticed. This was constant together with his long-held aspirations; he additionally needed to name the Soviets’ bluff. In response to the notes of this assembly, Reagan mentioned: “We wanted to undergo with this in order that the Soviets can see we’re critical” and that “[t]hey have a selection — be part of us in arms discount or lose an arms race.” At that time within the assembly, Secretary of Protection Caspar Weinberger proclaimed consensus on what to hunt inside 5 years: a 50 p.c discount. When it got here to the interval after that, he famous “that whereas we’ve the sources to maneuver in direction of standard emphasis, we don’t have the need (i.e., ‘We don’t have the votes’).” Democrats had flipped the Senate a couple of weeks earlier and had been set to regulate all the important thing committees come January 1987 and complicate Weinberger’s life. He noticed: “[So] whereas the Soviets don’t have the general sources, they’ll make up for this by their willpower to make additional sacrifices.”
On Jan. 15, 1987, Performing Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates despatched his company’s response to Nationwide Safety Choice Directive 250 to Reagan’s newly appointed Nationwide Safety Advisor Frank Carlucci: “The paper covers loads of vital points,” Gates wrote. “I need to emphasize that, though I believe it’s extremely unlikely that the Soviets would associate with a transfer to get rid of ballistic missiles whereas retaining bombers and cruise missiles, they, in actual fact, can be in a a lot better place to benefit from such a brand new regime than most individuals notice.” In different phrases, Gorbachev might effectively be laying a entice.
What follows within the Central Intelligence Company paper are an summary and 109 paragraphs on subjects that stay related in 2025. “A zero-zero ballistic missile settlement between america and the Soviet Union can be trigger for concern in Beijing — regardless of its longstanding name for the abolition of nuclear weapons,” in accordance with the overview. China would come below nice stress to accede to such a treaty. “On the similar time,” the paper went on to say, “compliance with an settlement [. . .] would nullify China’s deterrent, which depends completely on ballistic missiles that may threaten the Soviet Union.”
In response to paragraph 82, NATO allies — particularly nuclear-armed Britain and France — “will proceed to oppose the elimination of U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles on the grounds that it’s going to undermine the idea of nuclear deterrence and weaken the perceived U.S. dedication to Western Europe’s protection.” Paragraph 107 — “Nth Nations” — concluded that it was unlikely that states akin to Libya, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea would restrain their nuclear ambitions. To conclude this exhaustive depiction, the Central Intelligence Company included a chart of what Soviet forces might seem like in December 1996 and the way menacing that would nonetheless be.
In the case of Nationwide Safety Choice Directive 250, Gates’ memo was not fairly the tip of the highway. However you get a way of the reluctance of the Central Intelligence Company on high of that of the Joint Chiefs. On April 7, 1987, Nationwide Safety Advisor Frank Carlucci submitted to Reagan a closing report on the navy features of a world with zero ballistic missiles: “[The Joint Chiefs] conclude {that a} transition to a zero ballistic missile world by 1996 is feasible both with no enhance in threat or with no enhance in value, however not each. They supply two plans, one sustaining threat fixed, and one involving no enhance in value.” Carlucci spared the president the 100 pages of the Joint Chiefs’ report. He really useful to Reagan that “[p]ending some Soviet motion in that course, we take no additional motion on analyzing the Reykjavik system for a transition to a world with out offensive ballistic missiles.”
After all, none of this befell in a political vacuum. Particulars concerning the Iran-Contra affair emerged in November 1986 and hobbled the Reagan administration for months. Congressional hearings started on Might 5, 1987 and lasted till Aug. 6, 1987, after which Reagan publicly apologized. These had been the bottom months of Reagan’s presidency. Did Iran-Contra impede Reagan’s potential to counter Central Intelligence Company and Joint Chiefs of Workers skepticism about Nationwide Safety Choice Directive 250? That I have no idea; it’s one thing to ponder.
Reagan rebounded, signing the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987, and he fought laborious to conclude the Strategic Arms Discount Treaty earlier than the tip of his presidency. “[T]he backside line is you’ve bought to go for the gold,” as he put it to his nationwide safety staff on Feb. 9, 1988.
Behind the Curtain
In sum, I discovered from Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1 that, after the Reykjavik Summit, Reagan instructed his nationwide safety staff to embark on an train that reconsidered a elementary tenet of U.S. grand technique from the late Fifties ahead — that ocean spanning ballistic missiles would underwrite the safety of the American homeland — and his nationwide safety staff, which was in flux due to Iran-Contra (in addition to the incapacitation of Director of Central Intelligence William Casey), took this cost significantly and concluded that to take action can be too costly. Particularly within the context of the Gramm–Rudman–Hollings Balanced Finances Act, which Reagan signed into regulation in December 1985 and which pegged future spending to deficit projections, the price of reaching zero ballistic missiles was insurmountable.
Within the totality of those and different sources, it’s attainable that Nationwide Safety Coverage, 1985–1988 Half 1 tells you nothing greater than what you already knew or might work out elsewhere. On the very least, it’s a comfort. All Overseas Relations of america volumes are free and accessible to anybody, anyplace — and in three E-Reader codecs. Learn them on the seashore and give you your personal interpretation of historical past. Figuring that out is the hardest-yet-most-enjoyable half.
James Graham Wilson works on Soviet and Nationwide Safety Coverage volumes for the Overseas Relations of america sequence within the Workplace of the Historian on the Division of State. He’s the creator of America’s Chilly Warrior: Paul Nitze and Nationwide Safety from Roosevelt to Reagan (Ithaca: Cornell College Press, 2024) and The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the Finish of the Chilly Battle (Ithaca: Cornell College Press, 2014).
The views expressed right here don’t essentially replicate these of the U.S. authorities or the U.S. Division of State.
Picture: Nationwide Archives through Wikimedia Commons
