The Cold War

The most dominant theme of the book is the Cold War and how it affected decision making in the post-World War II era. The Cold War was a conflict between ideologies and a struggle to categorize nations into the Eastern or Western blocks with socialism struggling to prove it was better than capitalism and vice-versa. The result of this was the arms race and accumulation of weapons. The U.S. built up its weapons and made new weapons as a form of deterrence, especially once the Soviets had nuclear capability. It was believed that a strong second strike capability would deter the enemy from attacking because they knew the retaliation would destroy them. The Cold War meant that everyone lived under the threat of the bomb and the outbreak of war, even though both Russian and the U.S. knew enough not to engage in a...