[September 2, 2024] Recently, I watched a short video of Michael Malice discussing how U.S. President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev were separately involved in classified simulations with an unexpected outcome. The idea was to train their senior leaders how to act in case their enemy shot nuclear missiles at their country. We all have assumptions about how this MAD Doctrine involving a nuclear attack would prevent the world from being totally destroyed. We could be wrong.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction principle of deterrence) was based on the idea that the two superpowers would not dare attack the other for fear of their own country’s destruction. MAD might just be wrong and go against what we assumed was the psychological nature of our leaders, especially Reagan and Gorbachev.
In his excellent presentation, Malice notes that Reagan (and also UK PM Thatcher) were not interested in bringing down the Soviet Union. We all assumed they did. For example, Reagan talked about the “Evil Empire” of the USSR in one of his famous speeches in 1983.
We know that Reagan was not interested in bringing down the USSR as his primary goal.
“Reagan’s big interest was ending the threat of nuclear war. There’s this scene that I uncovered in my research – you know, they’re playing poker – they both have to act one way in public and another way in private. Neither of them wants to kill each other or be killed. This is playing brinksmanship. They bring Reagan down to show him how you retaliate if there is a nuclear strike [on the USA by the USSR]. [Reagan] thought that ‘If I retaliate within minutes, literally millions if not tens of millions of Russians, who are innocent people, whose only crime is being born on the far side of the iron curtain. When I retaliate, I’m going to be killing all of them. And I’m supposed to be the good guy?’ It made no sense to him.” – Michael Malice discussing Reagan’s take on the simulation
This simulation was also occurring on the other side of the world with Gorbachev.
“But the beautiful part is Gorbachev is taken down into the bunker, and he is shown the rehearsal, and they go, ‘Okay, Mr. General Secretary, if this happens, [this is] the button you press, and he goes ‘I’m not pressing that button even for practice purposes.’ And he’s like, ‘If they strike us, too bad.’”
Neither of them knew the other had this position. Malice says that what is also fascinating is that Thatcher, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, gets a lot of pushback for how she treats Gorbachev. But she doesn’t get credit for her style of diplomacy. After an in-person meeting with Gorbachev, she went on the BBC and said that she could do business with Mr. Gorbachev.
Thatcher and Reagan each sat down with Gorbachev separately and agreed that this status quo of nuclear weapon perpetual brinksmanship is intolerable. Together, Thatcher and Reagan gave Gorbachev the space to demilitarize. What was to follow were several nuclear arms reduction treaties that substantially reduced the number of nukes each country possessed.
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Labour Day is a statutory national holiday celebrated throughout Canada on the first Monday in September. The September date has remained unchanged, even though the government has been encouraged to adopt May 1st as Labour Day, the date celebrated by the majority of the rest of the world. Moving the holiday, in addition to breaking with tradition, could have been viewed as aligning the Canadian labour movements with internationalist sympathies. Another major reason for keeping the current September date is that the United States celebrates its Labor Day on the same day.
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Taken from https://www.officeholidays.com/
Looks like we’re in this together.
Thanks Ron. I didn’t know.
“We know that Reagan was not interested in bringing down the USSR as his primary goal. Reagan’s big interest was ending the threat of nuclear war. ” – Gen. Doug Satterfield. Now that is a surprise if you grew up during that time period. I guess this is what Mr. Malice means when he said in the interview that what these men said in private and in public were different.
This year is the 130th anniversary of the LABOR DAY holiday, which is celebrated on the first Monday of September. While actions by unions in recent years to advocate for workers are a reminder of the holiday’s activist roots, the three-day weekend it creates has become a touchstone in the lives of Americans marking the unofficial end of summer. In other words, they don’t give a sh## but that this is a day off. Americans are lazy.
Ha Ha, you got that right Darryl. 👀
Don’t be too surprised by that. Darryl is one smart dude. Happy Labor Day …. cough cough …. happy day off …. yep, got that right the second time.
I agree, today has become just an excuse to get a day off from work and Americans have lost the meaning of the day. So be it.
HAPPY LABOR DAY …………….
I went out to see the video myself to get an idea of what Gen. Satterfield wrote. What I found interesting was that less than a thousand people had viewed the presentation by Mr. Malice. This is an important issue in understanding leaders. So why so view? I found the video fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmL_ESDujdQ
Go see it yourself on YouTube (yeah, I know “screwtube” is an anti-American, anti-Free Speech platform but nothing else yet can replace it. I hope that Elon Musk creates a replacement).
Leftists/Progressives hated Reagan. I wonder what they would have to say about this? Of course, they will love Gorbachev, they love any dictator Communist because they love being told what to do like any agreeable toddler.
McStompie, yep, and that will never ever change the way Leftists/Progressives view the world. They “hate” capitalism and love communism. But here is what I can never figure out … They say they will leave America because it is too capitalistic but never do. Why? Simple answer. They are liars. And liars are what make Communism work. Deep down, they love capitalism.
Interesting take and gives me some solice that all politicians are not crazy.