Marc Ambinder. The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018. xx + 364 pp. Ill. $27.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4767-6037-7.

Reviewed by Peter Kuechler (Air University)

Published on H-War (December, 2019)

Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)

The Brink (2018) presents a detailed analysis structure was insufficiently organized and in need of the nuclear brinkmanship between the United of revision. Furthermore, the attack strengthened States and the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984, with Reagan’s religious, pessimistic worldview. His reli‐ emphasis on the 1983 NATO exercise Able Archer gious faith and the influence of his advisors led 83. The author, Marc Ambinder, claims that the Reagan to conclude that the United States could world was never closer to a nuclear war between only win or survive a nuclear war if it were to the United States and the Soviet Union than during strike first. This mind-set influenced Reagan’s for‐ this exercise. To support this thesis, Ambinder eign policy, including his view of the Soviet Union notes that he had interviewed about a hundred as an “evil empire,” and led to faulty conclusions people, including former intelligence officers with about Soviet intentions and behavior. In the USSR, firsthand information and soldiers who took part the majority of the Politburo assumed that the in the Able Archer 83 exercise. United States was vigorously planning a nuclear The author begins by describing the challenges first strike. With this in mind, General Secretary of the US nuclear command, control, and commu‐ Leonid Brezhnev and his intelligence chief, Yuri nication structure in the seventies and early eight‐ Andropov (a future general secretary), ordered a ies. Ambinder points out the challenge of short re‐ significant intelligence operation called RYAN action times during this period resulting from a re‐ (RJaN in Russian stands for “Nuclear Missile As‐ sponse time as little as three minutes between the sault”). detection of an enemy-launched missile and its im‐ Operation RYAN made activities related to nu‐ pact. Not only was the decision-making process clear warfare within NATO the top priority of the challenging, so was the fragile peace between the two Soviet foreign and military intelligence agen‐ United States and the Soviet Union. Both super‐ cies, respectively the KGB and GRU. For the first powers were primed to interpret each other’s ac‐ time in the USSR’s history, both agencies had to co‐ tions as preparations for a nuclear frst strike. operate. The KGB tasked the East German intelli‐ Shortly after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as gence agency (STASI) with assisting it in this mis‐ president in 1981, he was the victim of an attempt‐ sion. The STASI began detailed surveillance of the ed assassination that left him with a punctured Fulda Gap, an area of strategic importance where lung. The incident led Reagan to conclude, post- NATO expected a possible Soviet conventional at‐ surgery, that the US nuclear command and control tack. In this area, the STASI surveilled the small, H-Net Reviews nuclear-equipped American 501st Army Artillery Two months later, in November 1983, Able Detachment. At the same time, concerns in the Archer 83 took place. In the exercise, NATO forces United States arose that Soviet forces might move trained and rehearsed how to employ nuclear into Poland to end the pro-democracy movement weapons. Soviet and East German intelligence there. Fortunately, a Polish colonel, a CIA source, agencies closely monitored the exercise, and, as a convinced the CIA that there was no such Soviet reaction to the exercise, the Soviet Union in‐ plan. creased the readiness level of its forces. Two fac‐ During Ivy League 82, a nuclear command tors led Soviet leaders to the conclusion that NATO post exercise, Reagan learned more about the Sin‐ was using Abel Archer 83 as a cover-up for a nucle‐ gle Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). The SIOP ar first strike on the Soviet Union. The first was the was the US plan for fighting a nuclear war at the participation of US B-52 bombers that had never time. He experienced in-depth how unreliable the previously been involved in the exercise. The sec‐ nuclear warning and response system was and ond was a last-minute change in NATO’s encryp‐ came to believe that the Soviets would most likely tion format. This change shocked Soviet intelli‐ succeed if they attempted a decapitating first gence officers, because suddenly they were no strike. In 1982, the nuclear struggle between the US longer able to decrypt NATO communications. For‐ and the USSR remained at a consistently high lev‐ tunately, additional pre-attack indicators from el. In January 1983 Reagan met with the Soviet am‐ NATO were missing, and Soviet leaders did not es‐ bassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, calate any further. On the US side, the information to discuss the possibility of a meeting with General provided by the British KGB source, Col. Oleg Secretary Yuri Andropov to ease the tensions be‐ Gordievsky, prevented further escalation. A step tween the states. Reagan’s attempts at deescala‐ toward a better understanding between the Soviet tion, however, were not taken seriously by the So‐ Union and the United States would be made in Sep‐ viets. The reason for this may have been Reagan’s tember 1984, when Soviet foreign minister Andrei “Evil Empire” speech and the US FleetEX 83 exer‐ Gromyko talked with Reagan during his visit to the cise in which US aircraft repeatedly overflew a So‐ United States. The talks between Reagan and viet naval base to gather intelligence. From the So‐ Gromyko established the foundation for further viets’ perspective, a meeting between Andropov talks between Reagan and the new general secre‐ and a former US diplomat looked promising but tary, Mikhail Gorbachev. The slowly growing rela‐ became overshadowed by an incident in which a tionship between the two leaders finally led to a Soviet fighter shot down a Korean passenger air‐ real de-escalation, and eventually to the end of the craft, killing 269 civilians. Cold War. Shortly after this incident, Soviet lieutenant Ambinder provides a detailed understanding colonel Stanislav Petrov prevented World War III. of the brinkmanship between the Soviet Union The ground command and control center he was and the United States in the early eighties, and the stationed at received an early warning alarm on role of Ronald Reagan in this brinkmanship. He the “Okos” system, indicating the launch of five persuasively emphasizes the danger of human er‐ ICBMs from the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base ror as well as technical malfunction within nucle‐ in Wyoming. Soviet officials had sixteen minutes ar command, control, and communications sys‐ to respond. Petrov was part of the engineering tems. Perhaps this study's only weakness is that team of the Okos system and was able to identify the narrative sometimes jumps between scenes the alarm as a malfunction. and characters, which makes parts hard to read. To its credit, The Brink manages to thrill, fascinate,

2 H-Net Reviews and convince the reader of the dangers inherent in possessing nuclear weapons.

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Citation: Peter Kuechler. Review of Ambinder, Marc. The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983. H-War, H-Net Reviews. December, 2019.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54691

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