That wasn't politics. That was strategy. There's a difference between the why and the how.

As an old spook, I was exposed to quite a bit in nuclear strategy, not in a policy-making or war-fighting capacity, but on the technical fringes of system development. I hope I'm not hurting any long-held and cherished conservative stereotypes here, but just because I'm a liberal doesn't mean I'm a pacifist, or that I believed the Soviets and Chinese were poor misunderstood peace-loving puppies, or that we were imperialist running dogs, for that matter. In fact, they're still not peace-loving puppies, and we have our own agendas, too. As far as I'm concerned, the possibility of nuclear war between former superpowers is still not impossible, just less probable.

What I've always felt was totally unacceptable was that a war might happen by accident, or that a situation would spiral out of control leading to a full scale nuclear exchange even while both sides were desperately trying to avoid it. This is not unheard of; the First World War happened that way. It was fought for no good reason, nothing was settled by it, neither side wanted it, both sides tried to stop it, but it happened anyway. Events just got away from the participants. And the long term consequences were not only unanticipated, they were catastrophic. It almost came to that in Berlin, Korea and Cuba, but we finessed our way out of it.

The best way to prevent conflict is to convince your potential opponent he can gain nothing from it, but that you feel exactly the same way about it. This does not mean turn the other cheek, it means don't get in their face. But it also means you have to settle for nothing less from them. This is not an easy thing to pull off, and sometimes it takes a lot more raw courage than just playing tough guy.

In spite of some episodes and policies that I feel were obviously mismanaged, like this one I've just pointed out, (Viet Nam is another one); as a whole, I think the USA will be judged by history as having fought the Cold War in a basically intelligent and humane fashion. We have little to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of.