"INF" TREATY! N TACT! NO TURNING BACK FATES SEALED!

On December 8, 1987, President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty (INF) which aimed to eliminate  short and medium range nuclear weapons from their respective national arsenals. It was a small but significant step in the long process of easing Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, when Reagan first took office in 1981, this outcome was far from inevitable, and by the end of 1983, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were as fragile as they had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The potential for brinksmanship endured well into Reagan’s tenure, despite previous efforts at détente by both governments. The great success of Reagan and Gorbachev was their agreement in Geneva, Switzerland in 1985 to put aside all other policy issues and agree that, since it cannot be won, nuclear war must never be fought. This may see to be an obvious conclusion, but to put such an agreement into practice required eliminating the means of deterrence.

After meeting Gorbachev in 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously observed, “This is a man with whom I could do business.”