The story of the postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade. Drawing on a wealth of new documentation, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led Soviet leader Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first...

While leading a team of young engineers designing Starfire, the world's first orbiting solar power plant, James McLanahan Bradley is caught in the middle of a battle that threatens to become an all-out global war for control of space after the U.S. President ignites an arms race. "With the death of his heroic father, bomber and space warfare veteran Patrick McLanahan, Bradley McLanahan must now fly solo, leading a team of young engineers designing...

Examines the military's role in the Soviet state, Soviet thinking about nuclear weapons, and Soviet use of military power in foreign policy