campaign explains that Reagan had a grand strategy that was founded on six basic principles.
First, a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union would be devastating for both
sides. Reagan knew that both sides could survive, but civilization as we know it would be
destroyed. Second, Reagan believed that a reduction in the rate of increase or freezing production
at the current levels was not a sufficient way to deal with the threat posed by nuclear weapons. He
was firmly committed to the reduction of nuclear weapons. As early as 1976, Reagan said, "What
we should be trying to do is reduce the number of nuclear weapons, not just limit their growth."
Third, he found the national nuclear defense policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD)
morally appalling. In an address to the nation on March 23, 1983 Reagan said, "...to rely on the
specter of retaliation, on mutual threat [is] a sad commentary on the human condition. Wouldn't it
be better to save lives than to average them?"
Further, he believed that the premise of nuclear
deterrence was flawed. He felt that there had to be a better way of maintaining stability than each
side possessing enough power to annihilate the other.
Fourth, he was convinced that the Soviet Union was an implacable foe. He did not believe,
however, that the Soviet leadership was irrational. He thought that they would act in their own
best interests and that his job was to get them to recognize what was in their best interests.
Reagan was committed to a "classic... cold war image of the Soviet Union as an ideologically
inspired power bent on the triumph of communism on a global scale."
there were several critical elements of Reagan's image of the Soviet Union: danger of Soviet
expansionism, hostile ambitions of Soviet ideology as source of Soviet behavior, Soviet desire for
military superiority, Soviet superiority in conventional and nuclear capabilities, Soviet view of
unilateral concessions and good will as weakness and their respect for strength, and the view of
the Soviet decision-making process as collective government.
50
Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, March 23, 1983, Presidential Documents, 12:19, March 28, 1983, 23.
51
Martin Anderson, Revolution: The Reagan Legacy (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1988) 72-75.
52
Keith L. Shimko, Images and Arms Control: Perceptions of the Soviet Union in the Reagan Administration
(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1991) 101.
53
Keith L. Shimko, Images and Arms Control: Perceptions of the Soviet Union in the Reagan Administration,
101-116.
Convention