Reagan's Osama Connection: How he turned a jihadist into a terrorist kingpin.
Ten years earlier, had Reagan taken Gorbachev's deal, Afghanistan probably still wouldn't have emerged as the "friendly, neutral country" of Gorby's dreams. Yet it might have been a neutral enough country to preclude a Taliban takeover. And if the Russian-Afghan war had ended earlier—if Reagan had embraced Gorbachev on the withdrawal, as he did that same autumn on the massive cutback of nuclear weapons—Osama Bin Laden today might not even be a footnote in history.

Cold War International History Project - Virtual Archive
New Evidence on the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan

Gorbachev’s Nuclear Learning: How the Soviet leader became a nuclear abolitionist
For Gorbachev and the new cohort of Soviet leaders that came to power with him in 1985, the threat of nuclear disaster was indeed an important stimulus for disarmament. Moreover, the worldwide antinuclear movement influenced the Gorbachev leadership, as it influenced the Reagan administration (see Lawrence Wittner’s contribution to the forum). But the motives for nuclear disarmament were by no means confined to such external factors. Equally, if not more, important in explaining the extraordinary developments at the end of the Cold War was the reformist agenda, "new thinking," and personality of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Army Withholds Chemical Attack Antidote
The product, Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion, was developed by the Canadian military years ago, won Food and Drug Administration approval in 2003 and is sold in other NATO countries for neutralizing sarin, mustard gas and other chemical agents.