“The Soviet Union has always been blessed with five-year plans. Thanks to the Defense Department, we are to have our own in the ‘Defense Guidance’ that is to form the basis for Pentagon budget requests for the next five fiscal years. This comprehensive plan, which envisions a possible ‘protracted’ nuclear war, global conventional war and ‘space-based’ fighting with anti-satellite weapons, must be examined with great care. It comes close to a declaration of war on the Soviet Union and contradicts and may destroy President Reagan's initiatives toward arms control.”This excerpt from a New York Times Op-Ed piece by Hans A. Bethe and Kurt Gottfried, both of the Cornell University physics department, appropriately introduces the reader to Christopher Paine's examination of the Reagan Administration's 1984–1988 Defense Guidance plan, which was leaked to the New York Times on May 30, 1982. We also include Georgi Arbatov's statement of a Soviet reaction to the plan.