re: War on terror timeline
I was thinking about this last night. If I could have Reagan do it the same way all over again, would I? Yes.
Reagan won the cold war and got rid of the threat of global nuclear war. If the result of that today is being attack by terrorist (and I am not saying it is, but that professor is), I’ll take it. Why? The worst terrorist can do is take a city with a suitcase nuke, or using a bio-weapon. While this would be horrible and kill millions, it would not end the human race like a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR. Reagan ended that threat.