The chapters on this disk cover anti-ballistic missiles [ABM], "mutual assured destruction" [MAD], the emergence of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), détente and Strategic Arms Limitations Talks [SALT], strategic targeting from Nixon to Carter, the "Second Cold War," strategic policy during the early Reagan administration ("From Countervailing to Prevailing"), and the controversy over the Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI]. The discussion of the Soviet ABM system and early U.S. missile defense programs, Sentinel and Safeguard, leads to the momentous decision to MIRV ballistic missiles. MIRVs would enable the offense to work around and strike targets defended by ABMs. Because MIRVs greatly improved "offensive capabilities" by creating thousands of new warheads, they created a serious arms control problem. Thus, Robert McNamara retrospectively says "I think I was wrong" to support MIRVs when he was Secretary of Defense. The coverage of détente necessarily focuses on the relationship with deterrence and arms control, capturing well the ambiguity of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. As Kissinger's former deputy, General Brent Scowcroft observed, the purpose was to "calm things down" while allowing both sides to "keep on building systems." The presentation does not clearly show what made that possible: the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks] I agreement froze numbers of ICBMs for both sides, allowing the Soviets to catch up with the United States in deploying thousands of MIRVed nuclear warheads on the latest generation of Minutemen ICBMs. That the Minuteman force was on a highly risky quick-reaction, launch-on-warning posture is never discussed.9 A major element in these chapters is the growing interest in limited nuclear options, which became codified in National Security Decision Memorandum 242 and then updated and modified in Jimmy Carter's Presidential Directive 59. A key issue was the credibility of deterrence, with advisers from