Corbyn & Reagan: on the same side?

A letter in the latest issue of the London Review of Books deserves wider attention. It is from Edward Luttwak, a writer on military strategy (amongst other things) and a former consultant to various U.S. government agencies working in the security field. He writes that ‘Reagan did not believe in Mutual Assured Destruction. He would not press the button, period, not even if they bombed Washington D.C.’  Instead, according to Luttwak, Reagan misled people into thinking he had no qualms about nuclear warfare, and his rhetoric against the Soviet Union led to the general conviction that he would press the button at the drop of a hat. He nurtured the view that he was the coldest of Cold War warriors.
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Clearly this is not an option for Jeremy Corbyn, who would probably not even want an army large enough to form a guard of honour. But if the Luttwak version of Reagan is correct it should be used mercilessly in rebuttal of the accusations that will inevitably re-emerge in the next general election that Corbyn is an outlying eccentric pacifist who would leave the U.K. defenceless. The next time he is asked ‘would you press the button?’ he simply needs to answer ‘no, I’m like Reagan in that regard.’