Thirty years ago this week, the world almost ended. In what seems an alternative universe compared with the one we inhabit today, aging leaders in the Kremlin looked out their windows and saw the West preparing for war.
In response, they ordered the Soviet Union’s conventional and strategic nuclear forces to go on alert and tasked the KGB with discovering any hint that U.S. President Ronald Reagan was about to launch a surprise attack against the U.S.S.R. Urged on by the frightened men then ruling Russia, every report of plans for Western aggression – no matter how ridiculous – was channeled to Moscow in what was at that point in time the largest peacetime intelligence operation ever carried out by Soviet intelligence.
At the height of the crisis, approximately Nov. 2 – 11, 1983, Soviet military units along the Baltic and in sensitive parts of Eastern Europe were put on alert. Nuclear-capable bombers were readied and the missile silos of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and the ICBMs they housed — targeted to American and European cities — were prepped for action. Desperate for information on the status of Western military forces, KGB headquarters sent out cables to its operatives around the world, begging for updates on what the Soviet leadership saw as a possible prelude to war: a yearly NATO exercise that simulated conflict in Europe and, for the first time, included the practice release of nuclear weapons in war games that were to include high-level Western leaders.
What’s more, the U.S. and our NATO allies knew nothing about the Soviet preparations until almost a year later. Indeed, it was only through information acquired through a high-level KGB officer spying for the British that first the United Kingdom and then United States learned of them at all. Horrified by the possibility that they could have accidently started a nuclear war, U.S. intelligence scoured the record to see if they had missed any tell-tale signs of Soviet panic. While the results mostly remain classified today, at least one high-ranking U.S. intelligence official at the time, Robert Gates – lately U.S. Secretary of Defense but in 1983 the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence – has since stated for the record that Soviet fear was likely very real given the atmosphere and events leading up to that critical autumn of 1983.
Close to the brink
In hindsight, those events seem glaringly obvious for their potential to spark a war. Détente – the brief easing of East-West tensions that had emerged after the U.S. debacle in Vietnam – had come to a screeching halt. To Western conservatives, defeat in Vietnam and a subsequent perception of Soviet gains in Afghanistan, southern Africa and Central America seemed to indicate that communism was once again on the march. In response, newly-elected conservatives throughout the West pledged to not only continue the fight, but to take the offensive in the Cold War.
None more so than the Reagan administration, which ordered up the then-largest peacetime military buildup in American history. What’s more, this buildup was accompanied by fiery new rhetoric that lambasted the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” bent on world domination. What followed, in addition to the buildup in both U.S. conventional and strategic nuclear forces, were covert actions, dirty tricks, and provocative psychological warfare operations all aimed at undermining Soviet allies and militarily unnerving Soviet Union itself.
Soon, Soviet allies found themselves under siege by U.S.-funded guerillas and increasingly rattled by U.S. naval and air force reconnaissance units that repeatedly tested Soviet air and naval defenses in the most aggressive manner possible. Indeed, such aggressive testing of Soviet defenses may have ultimately been behind the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight 007, which was brought down by the Soviet military in September of 1983 when it strayed into Soviet airspace at about the same time a U.S. military reconnaissance flight was in the same area. All this was further compounded by the imminent deployment of the American short-range Pershing II missiles, which could lob nuclear warheads at all points in European Russia, Moscow included, in the span of a few minutes.
By November of 1983, Soviet paranoia had reached then-unprecedented levels, making that year’s annual NATO exercise, with its new nuclear components, more menacing than usual. The result was that while we practiced bombing Soviet cities and military targets in war games, select Soviet units hunkered down in bunkers, bases and silos, prepared for war that never came. One wonders what might have happened if, at the height of the crisis the West never even knew about, Soviet radar stations had malfunctioned and sent missile-launch warnings to Soviet military headquarters – as had happened a little over a month earlier in late September, 1983.
A partnership for peace
Luckily for us, war, despite Soviet anxiety, never occurred. The aging Soviet leaders whose formative political experience was fighting off the Nazi invaders in World War II – Nazis who initiated a period of détente before launching a surprise invasion of the U.S.S.R. in June 1941 – passed from the stage. They were replaced by a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose worldview was formed not by combat with Western invaders, but through living in a post-War Soviet Union that was falling further and further behind the West in material achievements – something he knew from both working within the Soviet system and by actually visiting the West and talking with many of the people he met there.
By the time he came to power, in March 1985, Gorbachev encountered a chastened Reagan – who by all accounts was deeply disturbed by the prospect of nuclear war and profoundly moved by war-plan briefings and Hollywood depictions of nuclear Armageddon in films like “The Day After.” Once informed by the British and his own intelligence organs as to the fear gripping the Soviet hierarchy, Reagan, by his own admission, began to understand that despite their significant differences, Soviet leader were men not unlike him. They, too, he realized, feared being attacked by what they saw as a dangerous, devious enemy bent on their total destruction.
Given the consequences of that belief, Regan issued volte face for his administration. America would continue to fight the Cold War, but the warlike, aggressive rhetoric would be turned down and negotiations renewed on such things as arms control, economic cooperation and human rights. Gorbachev, by then seeking a way out of the morass that was becoming Soviet economic decline, became his willing partner, and together they so significantly reduced East-West tensions that the prospect for war, so high in 1983, was reduced to nil. Together, they effectively and peacefully ended the most serious geopolitical contest since the Second World War.
This remarkable turn of events – from near war in 1983 to a relatively stable peace some five years later at the end of Reagan’s second term in office – was only possible because of the pragmatism of Gorbachev and the empathy of Reagan. While Reagan may have often been lost when it came to complex policy discussions, his background as an actor allowed him to walk in the Soviets’ shoes and — perhaps unprecedented for a U.S. leader — see how the Soviets must have viewed the United States: as a menacing colossus bent on their violent destruction. The irony, of course, was that we here in America viewed the Soviets in the exact same way.
Empathy in foreign policy
It is useful to remember all this, not simply to recall how close we all came in 1983 to a war that nobody wanted, but to keep in mind its lessons for U.S. foreign policy today. The first, of course, is that like Reagan, we must be willing to step outside ourselves to grasp how our enemies – especially those we fear the most – see us. Only then can we understand their actions and so make decisions that are informed and well-thought-out. Not understanding Soviet fear in the early 1980s, we made decisions that, but for the grace of God, could have had catastrophic consequences. Rather than being seen as a sign of weakness, empathy informed and strengthened Reagan’s foreign policy.
Second, it is important to understand that what makes a good leader is not his or her ability to throw verbal hand grenades abroad or otherwise stir up armed conflict with our chosen adversaries, but to peacefully manage our differences with other countries. Early on in his first term as president, Reagan’s blunt rhetoric and tactics so terrified the Soviets that a war, as we’ve seen, almost resulted. As it turns out, our nation was far better served by Reagan in his second term, when his willingness to listen to, negotiate with and reassure his Soviet counterpart was a major factor in ending the Cold War. After all, if Gorbachev had had no counterpart in Washington, he would never have had the leverage he needed to fight those at home who were opposed to reducing tensions with the West.
Third, Reagan’s conversion from an ideological Cold Warrior into a pragmatic, problem-solving peacemaker is his major legacy and is one that has largely been forgotten by many calling themselves conservatives today. Instead, the Reagan that has emerged out of conservative myth-making in the decades since his two terms in office is little more than a caricature of a man who was far more nuanced than either his enemies or his allies gave him credit for.
We should remember that it took immense political courage to step outside the comfortable confines of one’s own ideological predisposition to seek out peace with one’s enemies – and we’re all lucky Reagan saw the error of his ways and reached out to shake hands with the devil he had raged against for so long. Indeed, by May 1988, near the end of his presidency, he was asked by journalists following him on a trip to Moscow whether he still believed the Soviet Union was an “evil empire.” With cameras running and the people at home watching, he quite forthrightly and simply said, “no.”
These are not unimportant things to think about as we negotiate with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, deal with terrorism abroad or strategize about containing a rising China. The dark days of November 1983 may be long gone as the Cold War slips ever further into historical memory, but its lessons remain as poignant as ever. As we pause for a moment to remember the war that never was, let’s hope today’s leaders take heed of its lessons.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News’ editorial policy.