The key to understanding Ronald Reagan--and his profound effect on the freeing of Eastern Europe--is the power of his convictions. When Ronald Reagan came to believe something, he was unshakeable. And what he believed--what he knew--was that the Soviet Union and the Soviet empire were not destined to be permanent figures in the flow of time. The moment would come--and soon, Reagan thought--when the Soviet empire would disintegrate and the Soviet Union itself would come apart, because no system that did not rest on the freedom of human beings could long endure.
It was this belief that led him to reject the policy of détente, and to adopt a policy of confrontation and military build-up that would hasten what he already regarded as inevitable. And when in 1989 the collapse of the Soviet empire actually came about, Ronald Reagan could not have been surprised, since to him it was always living on borrowed time.
At the intellectual root of détente was an assumption that, while the Soviet Union had its problems, it and its empire represented a long term challenge to the West and the United States. During the Ford administration, as counsel to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, I happened to attend a cabinet meeting at which relations with the Soviet Union were discussed, and Henry Kissinger remarked that the challenge for the United States in the future would be “living with a sick bear.” In other words, it was understood that the Soviet economy was weak, and in other respects faced profound difficulties, but even a Kissinger was unable to make the conceptual leap to the notion that the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire could be precipitated by policies and actions of the US government.
So Reagan’s profound effect on this aspect of world history sprang from two distinct elements of his personality and nature--his unshakeable beliefs, in this case the evanescence of the experiment with Communism, and his intellectual ability to devise strategies that exploit those beliefs. I will discuss both of these in turn.
Reagan’s remarkable confidence in his own conclusions about the world--what I call the power of his convictions--was displayed again and again during his presidency. One of my favorite examples, discussed in my book, Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency, is his refusal to raise taxes during the serious recession of 1981-82, even though almost everyone--economists, Democrats, Republicans and his own White House staff--were telling him this was essential in order to enable the country to escape some of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression. The proponents of a tax increase argued in terms of the economic theories of the time--that the deficits projected in the wake of Reagan’s tax cut would keep interest rates high, and this in turn would stifle any economic recovery. But despite these claims, based on the conventional economic wisdom of the era, Reagan could not be moved. He had come to believe in the little-known and much criticized supply-side theory, and when he believed in something he held it firmly until proven wrong. As everyone now knows, Reagan was not wrong. Despite the deficits, interest rates fell and the tax cuts stimulated a burst of economic activity so powerful that 18 million new jobs were created in the United States in the 5 remaining years of the Reagan administration. In addition, countries around the world began imitating the U.S. model by privatizing government-held businesses and cutting taxes. Reagan’s convictions changed not only the United States, but much of the rest of world as well.
There are many similar examples in foreign policy, where Reagan simply ignored the advice of the experts and charted his own course. His refusal, at Reykjavik in 1986, to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative, despite Gorbachev’s offer of nuclear disarmament, is another example of his attachment to an idea. Although many of the advisers present at those talks wanted him to accept Gorbachev’s offer, he again showed utter confidence in his own judgment on such matters. And, again, he was proved correct. Now that we live in a world where rogue states may acquire nuclear capabilities sufficient to threaten the United States, Reagan’s vision of how the future protection of Americans and their allies might be achieved has once again been shown to be uncannily prescient.
Abandoning détente and challenging the Soviets was of a piece with this confident attitude of mind. All through the 1970s, Reagan opposed the policy of détente. As he wrote in his autobiography, Ronald Reagan: An American Life, “ Our relationship with the Soviets was based on ‘détente,’ a French word the Russians had interpreted as a freedom to pursue whatever policies of subversion, aggression, and expansionism they wanted anywhere in the world. . . . In my speeches and press conferences I deliberately set out to say some frank things about the Russians, to let them know there were some new fellows in Washington who had a realistic view of what they were up to and weren’t going to let them keep it up.”
This confrontational approach, based on a realistic assessment of Soviet intentions that was unique to Reagan, took two forms: economic sanctions, coupled with a military buildup to weaken the Soviet economy, and delegitimizing language to weaken the Soviets’ prestige and their claim to the initiative in world affairs. When the Soviets backed the repression of Solidarity and the imposition of martial law in Poland, Reagan ordered a trade embargo against both Poland and the Soviet Union, and banned the sale of oil and gas technologies to the Soviet Union. Poland lost its most favored nation trade status with the United States. Describing his conversation with his foreign policy advisers after the crackdown in Poland, Reagan wrote in his diary: “I took a stand that this may be the last chance in our lifetime to see a change in the Soviet empire’s colonial policy re Eastern Europe. We should take a stand and tell them unless and until martial law is lifted in Poland, the prisoners were released and negotiations resumed between Walesa and the Polish government, we would quarantine the Soviets and Poland with no trade or communication across their borders.”
Once again, Reagan was forced to act without the support of others, in this case traditional US allies, and over the opposition of supporters of détente. Germany, France, Canada, Norway, Greece, Italy, and even Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain, denounced the martial law in Poland, but refused to adhere to the US embargo. And George Kennan, the architect of US post-war policies of containment of the Soviet Union, criticized the sanctions as undermining détente. This should be a reminder that the reactions to leadership from President George W. Bush on Iraq--except for the French campaign for votes against Washington in the UN Security Council--were hardly unique. But the sanctions imposed a significant cost on the Soviet and Polish economies, eventually leading to the lifting of martial law and the resumption of negotiations between the Polish government and Solidarity.
Reagan’s military buildup was also opposed in the United States, and in unexpected quarters. It could be anticipated, of course, that Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy would say during the election year of 1984 that Reagan and his advisers were “talking peace in 1984 as a prelude to making war in 1985,” and that former President Jimmy Carter would tell the Soviets that Reagan’s policies made it likely that “there would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power.” But former Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford also suggested that the arms buildup had to be slowed down. The American Business Council supported military cutbacks, and the Republican governors group declared that Reagan was spending too much on the military. As in the case of his tax cuts, Reagan also faced opposition from within his own staff, with James Baker, his chief of staff, and other high officials quietly letting the press know that they thought Reagan’s defense budget requests were excessive. Throughout, however, Reagan stayed the course. “The president would have willingly lost the [1984] election,” said Robert McFarlane, his National Security Adviser, “if it came down to changing his Soviet policy.”
Reagan’s efforts to delegitimize the Soviets were also extensive, and also strongly opposed. Probably the most controversial of his statements was his characterization of the Soviet Union as “an evil empire.” It brought widespread condemnation, and the language was included in the speech over the objections of many in the State Department and the White House staff. In repeated drafts, the language was taken out, and Reagan kept putting it back in. When it was finally spoken by Reagan, it clarified things. It brought people to their senses, both inside and outside the Soviet bloc. It denied one important implicit element of the détente policy--that there was a moral equivalence between the Soviet Union and the West. Once this point was understood, the initiative shifted; opponents of Soviet rule within Eastern Europe were encouraged—they now saw themselves on the side of right and morality--and the Soviet Union was placed on the defensive. Like the little boy who alone would say that the emperor had no clothes, Reagan spoke the truth and suddenly everybody understood.
But Reagan backed his words with actions, authorizing a huge increase in the funding for Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America, and insisting that they take a more confrontational line with the Soviets--especially in Eastern Europe. This again was pure Reagan. More than any US president in modern times, he had enormous faith in the power of ideas. Reagan owed his election to his ideas, and their clarity was responsible for the success of his administration. He would naturally believe that the peoples of Eastern Europe could be won over by radio broadcasts. Just as he sought to persuade the American people that government was not their friend, he set out to persuade the peoples of Eastern Europe that they could hope for a future of freedom. Surveys showed that these broadcasts were reaching a wide audience in Russia and Eastern Europe, and no doubt had an effect.
So Reagan, over opposition at home and abroad, continued to press the Soviets everywhere--in the economic sphere, militarily, and on the plane of ideas and morality. Eventually, as we now know, his policies brought about the collapse of the Soviet empire and the liberation of Eastern Europe, but ultimately they were based on nothing more than faith--his faith that with sufficient and relentless pressure the Soviet empire and the Soviet Union itself could be brought down.
In my book, I argue that Reagan had a strategy for conducting his presidency. It involved a deliberate effort to keep out of the details of policy debates on relatively minor issues, while focusing his attention on economic and tax policy, free trade, reducing the Soviet threat, and restoring the confidence of the American people. He approached these major issues in the same way--through his speeches, which were ultimately aimed at winning the American people to his position. Apparently believing that these were the things that most needed his attention, he pursued this strategy relentlessly, even though it allowed his opponents to mark him as disengaged from the operations and policies of his own administration.
In Reagan’s selection of an appropriate means to achieve a desirable end, we can see the connection that Reagan made between the weakness of the Soviet system and a strategy for bringing about its collapse. Although others in the US government recognized the weaknesses of the Soviet Union--recall the sick bear comment--they were unable to follow out its logical consequences. Detente was exactly the wrong policy to adopt if you thought your opponent was weak. As a policy of cooperation and nonconfrontation, it would inevitably prolong the life of the Soviet system.
This perception underlay Reagan’s approach to the Soviets. Shortly after his inauguration as president, Reagan began to receive intelligence reports about the state of the Soviet economy. These confirmed his view that there was an opening to achieve more than just an accommodation. As he wrote in his autobiography, “The Soviet economy was being held together with baling wire; it was a basket case, partly because of massive spending on armaments. In Poland and other Eastern-bloc countries, the economies were also a mess, and there were rumblings of nationalistic fervor within the captive Soviet empire. You had to wonder how long the Soviets could keep their empire intact. If they didn’t make some changes, it seemed clear to me that in time Communism would collapse of its own weight, and I wondered how we as a nation could use these cracks in the Soviet system to accelerate the process of collapse.”
How, then, did Ronald Reagan contribute to the freedom of Eastern Europe? By recognizing--as had no other previous president--the true significance of Soviet economic weakness, and by developing and implementing a strategy to exploit it. In this, as in so many other facets of his remarkable presidency, Ronald Reagan relied on nothing but his own firmly held convictions and his talent for strategy.
Peter J. Wallison is a resident fellow at AEI.
