Abstract

Cold War to Star Wars

Perhaps the most important question--for present policy-makers as well as historians--posed by the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States is what role he played in ending the cold war. And perhaps the most illuminating recent article on this question is one written by Wesley Clark for "Washington Monthly" just before Reagan died in June 2004. A mistaken belief that the Soviet Union was brought down chiefly by U.S. military pressure, Clark believes, has led the group of neoconservatives now in charge of U.S. policy to think military action can now bring democracy to the Middle East. Clark acknowledges that the Reagan military buildup played a role in the Soviet turnaround under Mikhail Gorbachev. Soviet military backwardness was perhaps the most sharply painful aspect of the Soviet Union's growing technical lag behind the United States, and the Reagan military buildup intensified it. But far more important than the buildup, Clark argues, was the long policy of containment that preceded it. Gorbachev called for a "new thinking," which put the interests of peace and survival above imperial or ideological interest. He had a commitment to installing openness and respect for human rights in Soviet policy. In a word, the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred more for political than for military reasons.