The Coldest Peace

An immersive, surprising history of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s role in ending the Korean War and the urgent lessons this forgotten moment offers for today, including the simmering tension between the U.S. and China, from a former Congressman and current head of defense at Palantir.

In The Coldest Peace, Mike Gallagher takes readers inside one of the most overlooked acts of statesmanship and technological prowess in American history: how Dwight D. Eisenhower leveraged a clear-eyed strategy and the emerging tech of his era to end America’s first forever war, avoid a nuclear showdown with global communism, and restore American power.

At a time when many Americans feel betrayed by endless wars, as artificial intelligence transforms human society, and as China builds a vast arsenal for a second showdown with the United States, this book offers something rare: a hardnosed case study of a president successfully securing peace and preventing war.

Through vivid storytelling—from Eisenhower’s clandestine visit to Korea’s frontlines as president-elect, to his high-stakes nuclear brinksmanship with Red China, to his engagement with the GOP’s isolationist wing—Gallagher unearths the lessons that today’s national security leaders have forgotten, but which America’s crises demand. For Americans who believe in strength without folly, honor without holocaust, and wars that end—or better still, never begin—The Coldest Peace is not just a story from the past, it’s a path to peace in the twenty-first century.