Grenada: Preemptive Strike

Authors

  • Richard C. Thornton

Abstract

The U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983 was one of the most important, yet least understood, events of the Cold War. Its genesis lay surprisingly in the U.S.-Soviet INF arms control negotiations. The Soviets threatened to make an “analogous” deployment against the United States, if Washington proceeded with the deployment of the Pershing II missile to West Germany. Grenada was seen to be the probable location of such a deployment. President Reagan hoped to negate the possibility of a Soviet deployment to Grenada by improving relations with the Grenadian government of Maurice Bishop, but Bishop’s overthrow left him with no choice but to invade and preempt a Soviet move.

Author Biography

Richard C. Thornton

Dr. Richard C. Thornton is Professor of History and International Affairs at The George Washington University where he has taught since 1967. He is also a former intelligence officer, having retired as a Lt. Col from the Air Force Reserve in 1985. He served two stints in the Air Force. His first, after a year at Yale to study Chinese, was as a Chinese language translator based in Japan in 1956-57 and in Korea in 1958. His second was in the Pentagon from 1975 to 1985 where as an Air Force reserve officer he served on the China desk, participated in war games, and lectured within the Department of Defense on strategic issues and the history of the Cold War. In between, Dr. Thornton earned his BA from Colgate University in 1961 with a major in Russian Studies and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1966 where he specialized in American, Russian, Japanese and Chinese history. He has written a dozen books and several dozen articles on various strategic aspects of international affairs. His most recent book, part of a four-volume study, is The Reagan Revolution, III: Defeating the Soviet Challenge (Vancouver: Trafford, 2008).

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Published

2009-01-01

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1-2 (2009): Fall and Winter 2008/2009

Section

Contemporary Issues in Military and Strategic Studies