The Strategic Defense Initiative

In this impressively researched volume, Ralph L. Dietl reappraises current historical assessments of the Reagan administration's diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union and the role the Strategic Defense Initiative (also known as Star Wars) played in these maneuverings during the “second Cold War,” from the demise of détente in the latter part of the Carter administration through the arms control agreements signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev (p. xiv). His study is a bureaucratic history that emphasizes documents, agreements, and meetings more than the personalities involved. Dietl argues that “the common narratives on the end of the Cold War are dominated by three schools of thought,” that are, in his estimation, flawed (p. 133). The first, the containment school, credits Ronald Reagan's power politics with hastening the demise of the Soviet Union—an empire already bankrupt and unable to compete with the United States. The second, the convergence school, stresses the contributions of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and Ostpolitik in penetrating the Soviet Union with Western individualism and bringing about its collapse. The third, the conspiracy school, focuses on how Gorbachev's repeal of the Brezhnev Doctrine (1968) and embrace of self-determination, among other factors, weakened Communist party rule and spawned conspirators, such as Boris Yeltsin, who undermined Gorbachev's plans for a Russian confederation. This school denies that the Soviet Union was unable to compete technologically or economically with the West

Administration (probate law · Communism · Demise · Economic history · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · History · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Nuclear Issues and Defense · Public Administration · Space exploration and regulation