To Run the World Quotes

“The question bothered Khrushchev because he knew that, just as in Berlin, he had oversold Soviet power and, were his bluff to be called – that is, if the Americans simply moved in and toppled a Soviet client – his credibility would be in tatters.”
― Sergey Radchenko, To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power

“In Khrushchev’s perception, at least, peaceful coexistence meant that the United States was forced to respect the Soviet Union as an equal. The Soviet leadership had aspired to acceptance. Now they were getting a grudging recognition as something of an existential menace.”
― Sergey Radchenko, To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power

“Nuclear weapons offered a shortcut to greatness that, Khrushchev knew, the USSR did not yet deserve because it was still far behind the West in economic development.”
― Sergey Radchenko, To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power