As the lone individual to work in the White House staff of four Presidents and goes up from an entry-level analyst to a CIA director, Robert Gates is exceptionally fit to tell the extraordinary story of the Cold War. Basing on his access to top secret information and top-level participation in policy decision, Gates puts down naked the concealed wars and actions.
The main thesis of Gates is the fall down of the Soviet Union and the steps that the United States took so as to speed up its termination. Gates (1997) explains that “modernization of ABM sites would continue to be a high Soviet priority until the end of the Cold War” (P. 37).
Gates is hurting in his book when he argues that Gorbachev’s frenzied waving of the olive bough left him cynical and vigilant but not sightless. He is not the earliest to make this declaration, which has glimmered strong arguments. The cold war has history that can be traced to World War I and finished, as it started, with a transformation of route by the man in command at Moscow.
As Gates (1997) expresses, “the last phase of the cold war was an excellent deal like a prizefight wherein an unexpected outbreak of hooks and jabs in the ninth circle placed the huge guy down on a single knee for the tally” (p.125).
However, Gate’s account cannot be released out of hand as war is not too tough a word for a martial struggle which from time to time endangered to end development in a day, and the martial and political difficulties lifted by President Reagan in the 1980s could not simply be argued against by a Soviet Union in ongoing economic challenges.
The Soviet Union and the United States was unquestionably toe-to-toe during the cold war decades and the fall down of the Soviet Union looked like a military conquer in each respect.
Gates believed in the American foreign and military rules-where we sketched the line, the weaponry we acquired to guard it-accounts for the way things happen, and we cannot rather discard the prizefight comparison except if we have a clearer explanation to give in its place.
Gates got to his corner of the combat zone in August 1968, a day prior to the marching of Warsaw Pact military into Czechoslovakia to invalidate a challenge to Communist law, and he stepped into the CIA’s intelligence management in the position of a Soviet analyst.
That certain protrusion of naked martial supremacy by the Soviet Union entirely embodied the nature of its rule for two imminent decades, including suppression of censure at home, supreme military hold up for North Vietnam in its triumphant war in opposition to the United States, backing of Cuban defense forces in Africa, employment of a refined new age group of nuclear armaments beset on Western Europe, martial and economic support for a leftist government in Nicaragua which was aggressively trying to challenge its neighbors, a whole attack of Afghanistan, diligent military novelty, the maltreatment of world’s view to recognize and applause the Soviet state as legal.
The solemn question in Gate’s book is how these schemes could all fall short, and the nation that backed them fall down and vanish with no strength to endure the heartbreak of a vast war, which normally marks the failure of realms.
Commend for the ending, in Gate’s outlook, goes mainly to the United States, for doing three things correctly. First, it defied Soviet military plans wherever they showed up. The moment the Soviets’ escaped strategic weapons plan was acknowledged for its challenge, the United States boarded on innovation efforts of its own.
Gates (1997) explains this as “new missiles with more warheads and more accurate delivery systems, new, command and control systems which would allow the United States to fight a nuclear war by stages” (p. 256). These labors were planned to maintain a possible US risk to use nuclear armaments in the occurrence of war.
The new costly round of American expenditure on strategic military was accompanied by readiness to confront Soviet friends, partners, and patrons in Africa, Afghanistan and Central America.
Gates says little about the brutality of these surrogate wars; what attracts him is that the American back up for the Mujahedeen and Contras augmented the economic and political force on the Soviet Union, already pushed to meet the many defense funds of Presidents Carter and Reagan.
According to Gates (1997), the second fixate that Americans did correctly was to exchange acknowledgment of Europe frontiers for Soviet accord to what was officially known as “Basket III of the Helsinki Accords of 1975” (p. 256). This was a human rights movement.
President Ford was strongly condemned by conservatives for thus legalizing Soviet rule within Eastern Europe in exchange for bare persiflage on human rights, which was expected to be ignored by the Soviets.
President Carter was also much condemned for pressing the foundation of human rights whilst it only aggravated the Soviets, radiated a dark covering over arms-control discussions, and endangered growing business associations.
According to Gates, apart from IT being an immaterial disruption, the Western force for human rights motivated rebels throughout the Soviet territory and distressed Soviet leaders that their ruling was being questioned.
As Gates (1997) explains, the Helsinki Watch group that coiled up in Eastern Europe and Moscow gripped merciless interest from the secret police, “but jail, exile, and brutal maltreatment in psychiatric facilities became the subjects of a robust underground literature” (p. 36).
Broadcasting such maltreatment steadily damaged the communist affectations that the party’s rule was founded on anything in addition to the power of the police and army. When Gorbachev, looking for a constituency for transformation, embraced honesty, he summoned to civic life a class previously schooled in non-interventionist debate and disappointed with the heritage of Lenin.
Finally, Bush was assaulted by US activists for his August 1991 speech conveyed in Kiev; capital of Ukraine, after the bonds gripping the Soviet Union jointly had clearly unraveled to the point of contravention. Gorbachev’s transformation had run out of haze and reports of a forceful coup were far-reaching Moscow.
Gates (1997) says that, “the thrashing of Ukraine, deafening in its stress for sovereignty would be the last straw for the man Bush saw as his colleague in maintaining peace” (p.518). Any self-effacing tilt of the cap to Ukrainian expectations would have succeeded Bush approval at home. However, Gates (1997) explains that “he turned down the Ukrainian parliament, in the final weeks of the life of the evil empire” (p. 257).
Critical review
Regrettably, Robert Gates decided to write down a book seeking broad audience and disregarding source references.. Gate’s book, part of account and part of past review , claims to deal with the whole phase from 1969 to 1991, but it is feeble on the era prior to the 1980’s, except from some fascinating remarks on the Carter administration. It approaches its hold happening on the Reagan and Bush administrators.
Also, even though hyped as the story of the first CIA analyst to turn out to be a director of central intelligence, Gate’s encounters as a sharp analyst were concise.
Moreover, aside from progressively added executive positions and senior staffs in the CIA, almost half of his Washington vocation was used up in three trips to the National Security Council (NSC) STAFF IN THE White House. Gates (1997) puts it in reference to his era in the White House as, “I spent more years working there than any president but Franklin Roosevelt” (p.574).
Gates has several insightful observations to formulate about American procedures. He portrays attention to the fundamental underlying permanence of rules in all cold war presidents, with a changeable mix of disagreement and varying combinations of hawks and doves in every government.
Specifically, he puts emphasis on the commonly unrewarding continuity of rules under Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, together with a common military increase, a strong line pressing civil rights issues, and even concealed operations. In my opinion, he is right on this.
In conclusion, basing on his access to top secret information, Gates tells the inside story of the five presidents and how they won the cold war. The main thesis of his work is the fall down of the Soviet Union the steps that the United States took so as to speed up its termination.
However, Gate’s book is much criticized. One of the criticisms is that part of account and part of past review , claims to deal with the whole phase from 1969 to 1991, but it is feeble on the era prior to the 1980’s, except from some fascinating remarks on the Carter administration.
Reference
Gates, R.M. (1997). From the shadows: the ultimate insider’s story of five presidents and how they won the cold war. New York: Simon & Schuster.