The Peacemaker

September 12, 2022
Often reviled as a warmonger, Ronald Reagan succeeded through resolve and canny policy in peacefully ending the Cold War, according to this sweeping study of his foreign policy. Inboden (The Last Card), a University of Texas professor of public affairs and former State Department official, credits Reagan with a visionary strategy to promote the dissolution of the Soviet Union with a massive military buildup, economic sanctions, and support for insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other Soviet client states, all aimed at imposing crippling costs on the rickety Russian economy. Meanwhile, Reagan’s genuine revulsion at the possibility of nuclear war—the postapocalyptic television movie The Day After terrified him, Inboden reports—prompted the president to pursue intense diplomacy with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, leading to groundbreaking nuclear arms reduction agreements. Throughout, Inboden offers blow-by-blow accounts of foreign-policy crises and melodramatic infighting among Reagan administration officials while shaping a lucid, engrossing narrative from the chaos. Though he questions morally dubious Reagan initiatives like the arms-for-hostages deals with Iran and support for Iraq’s authoritarian ruler Saddam Hussein, the criticism feels somewhat anodyne: “Such were the hard choices of geopolitics at the time.” Still, this is a stimulating case for the 40th president as a serious, far-sighted statesman.

September 9, 2022

Twenty-three years after his presidency ended, Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) remains a polarizing figure. How much was he personally responsible for the achievements of his eight years, and how do historians weigh these against his administration's failures (budget deficit, Strategic Defense Initiative) and scandals (staff infighting, Iran-Contra)? Inboden (exec. dir. and chair, Clements Center for National Security, Univ. of Texas Austin) is emphatically on Reagan's side. Drawing on the president's writings, he argues Reagan was more hands on than many accept. The author asserts Reagan's goal was to bring the Soviets to the bargaining table by building up arms in the U.S. and pressuring their already ailing economy. Once there, he would lead them to a negotiated surrender. Reagan's remarks support this interpretation but are too general to uphold the thesis that he developed a strategy of his own. Indeed, his frequent disinvolvement in discussion sometimes led observers to wonder if he fully understood what was at stake. This biography is like a photograph that's been airbrushed to remove the blemishes. VERDICT Still, history buffs will likely enjoy this conscientiously-researched biography.--David Keymer

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2022
An admiring account of Ronald Reagan's role in winning the Cold War. Inboden, executive director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas, admits that Reagan had a few warts, and members of his administration far more, but some readers may believe he gives Reagan more credit than he deserves. Throughout the Cold War, many Americans believed that the Soviet Union was militarily stronger than the U.S. and that clever communists were more successful than democratic parties in influencing foreign governments. In fact, by Reagan's arrival, its clunky command economy was on life support, its leaders a series of unimaginative old men, and its army bogged down in Afghanistan. Reagan hated communism and d�tente, the American policy at the time (begun the previous decade by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger), which aimed to ease tensions. Most Republicans approved of Reagan's confrontational policies, but the Soviet Union showed no signs of change until his second administration. Largely ignoring Reagan's domestic agenda, Inboden delivers an expert account of the political and diplomatic events of the 1980s. Carrying out his vow to pressure the Soviets, Reagan expanded the military, pressed allies to do the same, and "escalated the CIA covert action flooding the Iron Curtain with contraband media to undermine communism." He extolled free elections, democracy, and human rights, but critics still point out that dictators who proclaimed their anti-communism often got free passes. Matters changed when Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in 1985, but few knew it at the time. A year passed before Reagan came "to see that Gorbachev was indeed the partner for peace Reagan had long sought." To his credit, he was far ahead of his advisers, and by the time he left office, the Cold War hostility and fear of nuclear Armageddon had vanished and the Soviet Union was on its way to collapse. Throughout, the author's portrait is more flattering to Reagan than usual but not unconvincing. A well-researched study that will produce further debate about the Reagan era and the Cold War.

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