POSTSCRIPT
The Cold War ended, just as it had begun, at no definable date. Though
there was no clarity about the timing, no one could doubt the impor-
tance of the great thaw. Since the late 1940s, the struggle between
America and the USSR often came terrifyingly close to turning into a
global ‘hot’ war and always involved the nuclear arms race and
regional military conflicts as well as clashes over political order, ideol-
ogy, coalition maintenance, civil rights and the movement of people
and information. A Third World War was a continuous possibility.
The thaw set in only after Soviet leaders concluded that they could
no longer afford their geopolitical pretensions. Contrary to what is
usually supposed, the Kremlin in the early 1980s was already starting
to understand its difficulty. This was the crucial factor that enabled
Gorbachëv to advance the cause of reform from 1985. The effects of
chronic commercial embargoes and of a widening technological gap at
last become too heavy to bear, and the Politburo reformers secured an
agenda for change in foreign policy that might provide them with a
breathing space in which to remodel socialism in their country.
Reagan had a firm desire to eradicate the threat of nuclear war and
hoped to come to terms with the Soviet leadership on matters of dis-
armament. At the same time he stuck to his programme of strategic
military modernization, which under Gorbachëv served to increase
Moscow’s desire for a rapprochement with Washington. Reagan con-
sistently pushed Gorbachëv further and faster than he had planned to
move with regard to regional conflicts, to Soviet abuses in human
rights, to disinformation campaigns and to contacts between East and
West. The elites in the party, government, KGB and even the armed
forces approved of much of the diagnosis and course of treatment that
he recommended during his early years in power.
Meanwhile Gorbachëv and Reagan, with Shevardnadze and Shultz
in support, developed a degree of confidence in each other; and
lessons were accepted on both sides as the USSR deepened its commit-