David E. Hoffman's Dead Hand is both well-researched and well-written - but in its focus on Gorbachev and Reagan, it lacks analysis. When faced with the question, why did Gorbachev continue funding the hidden, and quite illegal, Soviet biological weapons program while seeking the complete elimination of nuclear and chemical weapons, Hoffman shrugs. Hoffman never raises the question of why the Soviets hated Reagan's SDI ("Star Wars" - ballistic missile defense). Nor does it occur to Hoffman to examine what Reagan did, and could have done, to push his Administration to support his goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons. I don't have a good answer for the last - but Hoffman, as a political reporter, could have presumably done more on the question.
The penultimate chapter of Dead Hand hints at why the Soviets, if not Gorbachev himself, kept the biological weapons program. Namely, it becomes a war-winning weapon in the absence of opposing WMD systems, particularly if the weapons are deployed on the scale envisioned by the Soviets. Compliance with the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BWTC) is still, in 2015, nearly impossible to verify, given the BWTC's lack of any verification protocol. As shown by Aum Shinrikyo's 1994 and 1995 (Tokyo subway) attacks, biological weapons are comparatively easy to acquire and deliver, with research and production of the weapons easily concealed.
Conversely, Hoffman never considers why the Soviets feared a viable ballistic missile defense (BMD). Hoffman takes Reagan at his word, that BMD would be a passive shield. Hoffman never considers that shields and armor exist not to preserve the combatant against repeated, unreturned blows, but to enable the armored fighter to deliver a decisive attack while surviving the exchange.
Let's consider two countries, perfect reciprocals. Both have 1000 missiles with 3 nuclear warheads each. Each has 100 cities with 1 million population each; each city takes 5 warheads to destroy. Likewise, each missile is in a silo, which takes two warheads to destroy. Each missile has 95% accuracy against a city, but only
60% against a silo. (You have to hit much closer to a hardened silo to destroy it, compared to a city.)
Without BMD, a first strike against silos leaves 100 to 200 missiles to retaliate. The retaliation essentially destroys 90% of the attacker's cities. If the first striker has BMD to destroy that retaliation, it can strike without injury to itself. And if the BMD has to handle 100 to 200 missiles, rather than 1000, the task is simplified and the efficacy of the shield improved.
The world is safer with fewer nuclear weapons, and will be safer with even fewer still. But the last phase, from several hundred to zero, will be tricky - and much trickier than the Dead Hand would lead one to believe.
