Alvin Saperstein recently reviewed Craig Nelson’s book The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era (Physics Today, September 2014, page 45). In that review, he asserted that “Ronald Reagan’s expensive drive for a high-tech defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles … considerably delayed the start of actual nuclear disarmament.” That assertion echoes Frank von Hippel’s idea of an alternative Cold War scenario with earlier US–Soviet arms-reduction agreements, which he spelled out in “Gorbachev’s unofficial arms-control advisers” (Physics Today, September 2013, page 41).
I question how much confidence should be placed in historical analysis that is based on the possibility of changing a single input to a complex system—the timing of arms-reduction agreements—and expecting a corresponding change in output timing with no other major differences. The hypothetical policy alternative should instead be judged by its potential for having achieved a better outcome—if one can be envisioned—and should be weighed against the possibility of having produced a less favorable outcome. Those considerations were not addressed in von Hippel’s detailed discussion nor by Reagan policy critics whose writings appeared in earlier issues of Physics Today (see, for example, “The strategic offense initiative? The Soviets and Star Wars” by Peter Westwick, Physics Today, June 2008, page 43 and the item in Washington Reports, Physics Today, July 1988, page 47).
For the Cold War, an extended struggle between two conflicting political-economic systems, the result of primary importance is the asymmetric outcome. That outcome, the collapse of the Soviet Union, brought immense benefits to one side: The US and its allies were intact, no longer threatened, and relieved of a huge and costly burden, and East European nations were freed from Soviet control and able to reestablish traditional ties with the West. Concerning arms reduction, the impending and actual Soviet collapse brought larger and more permanent reductions than any considered in prior negotiations.
Likewise, negotiated arms reduction constituted only one facet of the multifaceted Cold War interactions. Those interactions included conflict and competition in political ideology, economic development, military power, science and technology, sports, culture, and global influence. They also included open and clandestine worldwide political action, along with covert human and technological penetration for espionage, sabotage, policy manipulation, and deception.
I question the realism of assigning an exclusive and decisive role to arms-reduction agreements without considering the context created by the unceasing and contentious interactions that combined to produce the actual Cold War outcome and its long-lasting effects. Each suggested variant history constitutes an untested hypothesis. If the hypothesis is false, the variant outcome might have been comparably asymmetric in the reverse direction with a Soviet victory, or it might have been perfectly symmetric, in the form of mutual destruction.
