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The Reagan Revolution, I: The Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy

by Richard C. Thornton; co-published with Blackthorn

212 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0581; ISBN 1-4120-0213-3; US$22.50, C$26.00, EUR18.50, £13.00

The Reagan Revolution, I: The Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy describes the domestic decision-making process relating to the formulation of U.S. foreign policy during the first two years of the Reagan administration.

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About the Book

This is a book about the strategy and politics of the Reagan administration--a watershed in U.S. history. It is the record of how the president established and implemented the strategy that would ultimately lead to a victory over the S.U. in the Cold War.

About the Author

Dr. Richard C. Thornton is the professor of history and International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of nine books on the subjects of U.S. foreign policy, Sino-Soviet affairs, and Chinese history. His most recent works are:

The Falklands Sting: Reagan, Thatcher and the Argentine Bomb.
The Carter Years: Toward a new Global Order
The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping American Foreign Policy
Odd Man Out: Truman, Stalin, Mao, and the Origins of the Korean War

Purchase The Reagan Revolution, II: Rebuilding the Western Alliance

Excerpts

Preface

This is a book about strategy and politics, in particular, the strategy and politics of the first two years of the Reagan administration, which I have termed the Reagan Revolution. The Reagan years constituted a watershed in American history, the point in time when the United States took up the challenge from the Soviet Union and not only defeated that challenge, but also rose to preeminence as sole global superpower.

The first of four volumes, this book recounts and analyzes the political struggle to formulate American strategy and policy. It is the story of conflicting strategic visions and of the personalities who espoused them. It is the political history of the American decision-making process at a time of crisis. It is the record of decisions that would, despite continuing opposition to them from the political establishment, set in motion the events which would in a remarkably brief period of time lead to the demise of the Soviet Union and the beginning of a new era in world history.

The subject of national strategy - what it is and how it is decided - has mostly received the classic silent treatment: see no strategy, speak no strategy, hear no strategy. The same has been true for the politics of the decision-making process: see no political struggle, speak no political struggle, hear no political struggle. Despite what would appear to be an obvious interrelationship, strategy and politics are not regularly or rigorously taught in schools, written about in books, or discussed in public fora.

The reason for public reticence is also clear. To discuss national purpose with clarity would enable adversaries and friends alike to respond more effectively to, if not to outmaneuver, the United States in world affairs. However, as strategic circumstances in the 21st century are substantially different than in the 20th, it is now not only desirable, but also incumbent upon us to attempt to reconstruct America's strategic past to have a clear understanding of how we have managed to achieve the status of global hegemon.

Popular understanding of national purpose is muddled by confusion of the concept of strategy with policy. Every nation, large and small, practices strategy, each in its own way, but according to common principles. In political affairs, as more broadly distinct from military affairs, strategy determines national purpose, both the ends sought as well as the means chosen to achieve them. Moreover, strategic ends are always structural in their effects, whether the ends sought are global, regional, or local; military, economic, or financial. The search and struggle for structural outcomes are the essence of strategy.

Policy, on the other hand, is the specific, visible means employed to achieve predetermined strategic, that is, structural, ends. Many policies may constitute a strategy, but all policies fall into the category of means designed to move the nation toward strategic ends; they are not ends in themselves. The fi rst step in policy analysis, therefore, is to identify the strategic objective a policy is intended to serve. Only then can discussion of foreign policy become meaningful.

* * *

The Reagan Revolution is part of a multi-volume effort to analyze the history of American strategy from the Nixon through the Reagan administrations. The current volume details the story of President Reagan's efforts to reverse the American decline of the 1970s and set in place a new strategy designed to restore America's global primacy in the struggle with the Soviet Union. The policies he chose included a sharp turn away from the failed strategy of detente and accommodation to the Soviet Union, the expansion of the domestic economic base to promote domestic prosperity, the rebuilding of superior American military power, restoration of the western alliance, and the reestablishment of American global primacy.

The president's policies embodied a new strategic vision which was not shared by all in his administration. Opposition from some in the congress was expected as a natural part of the give and take of the American political process. But the most serious opposition to the president's policies came from those within his own administration, who struggled to preserve the prospects for an accommodation with the Soviet Union, the strategy of the New World Order. The struggle between the president and those who did not share his vision permeated the policy-making process throughout both terms of his administration and the analysis of American foreign policy cannot be comprehended fully without taking this struggle into account.

The struggle between the president and the political establishment was not a new phenomenon in American politics. As discussed in the introduction, conflict over strategy was an ever-present aspect of the political scene even though not widely understood by the electorate. What made the struggle particularly acute during the Reagan administration was that the president sought to adopt a strategy fundamentally different from what had been attempted in the past. Since World War II the United States pursued but two strategies - Containment and Detente, but although the former saw the Soviet Union as an adversary to be contained and the latter saw the Soviets as potential partners in a New World Order, both assumed the common objective of a working relationship with Moscow sooner or later.

President Reagan sought for the first time in any meaningful sense to carry the struggle to Moscow. His objective was not merely to "contain" Soviet pressures, it was to weaken and destabilize the foundations of the Soviet system itself. In other words, he sought to vanquish the evil empire, not merely contain it. Like President Kennedy before him, his objective was to negotiate an end to the Cold War from a position of vastly superior strength. This objective was anathema to the political establishment, which persisted and persists to this day in the notion of some sort of equitable accommodation with Moscow.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Introduction
A Short History of American Strategy

In the half-century leading up to 1980, a strategic ambivalence characterized both the American leadership and its foreign policy preferences. Throughout this period, the United States pursued alternately but two strategies - Containment and what has been termed the New World Order. The defining feature of both strategies was the uneasy relationship of the United States with the Soviet Union. Initially, the Soviet Union came to occupy a central place in American strategic thought entirely because of geography, as opposed to ideology, then remained central because of its military power, especially nuclear weapons, and contention with the United States for global hegemony.

Originally, Soviet importance to the United States was its location in the center of the Eurasian landmass, between two aggressive powers bent on world domination, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The Soviet Union's location and military power put it in position to influence the politics of Europe and Asia. American interest had nothing to do with ideology, per se. Indeed, it would be fair to say that Russia would have occupied the same role in American strategy regardless of its ideology, although it was certainly true that Soviet Communism affected the way the two nations interacted as well as limited the possibilities for cooperation.

Of the two strategies, Containment is the better understood in the popular mind. Containment was pursued during the "Cold War," from the late 1940s until 1973. During most of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, as adversaries in perpetual struggle, maneuvered for advantage against each other in proxy conflict. In this struggle the United States mobilized a forward defense on and around the periphery of the Eurasian landmass, constructed alliances, made political commitments to support anti-Communist governments, and deployed the military and economic power necessary to sustain this position against the centrifugal urges of the Soviet bloc. Anti-Communism became the mobilizing ideology of American strategy during the years of Containment.

The New World Order strategy is less well understood, and in some quarters specifically disavowed, but was pursued during four periods. The first under Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II and briefly afterward under Harry Truman. The second, even briefer attempt under John F. Kennedy after the Cuban missile crisis until his assassination. The third from 1973 through 1980 during the so-called period of "detente," under Henry Kissinger, and presidents Ford and Carter. And, the fourth, from late 1986 until the turn of the century under Secretary of State George Shultz, and presidents Bush (senior) and Clinton.

Under the New World Order, the United States and the Soviet Union were proclaimed to be "partners" in detente, presumed collaborators with a common interest in keeping the general peace. This was to be sure a very large assumption to make and neither the historical record, nor common logic, inspired confidence that detente could succeed. The historical record was replete with examples of Soviet perfidy and common logic argued strongly against any equal relationship. Finally, what expectation could there be that the Soviet Union would not seek superiority once given the opportunity to achieve equality?

By definition the New World Order strategy no longer required hostility toward Moscow and its minions and opened the door to new political arrangements between former allies and the Soviet Union. Under the New World Order, the United States moved to withdraw from its forward containing position on and around the Eurasian landmass. This was a lengthy, uneven process, now largely but not entirely completed, which involved the dismantling by various means of the forces, alliances, commitments, and ideology attendant upon the Containment strategy. Some of the dismantling process would be disguised as "defeats," as in Vietnam, or setbacks, as in Iran, rather than the deliberate acts of policy they were. "Human Rights" became, and remains, the mobilizing mantra of the practitioners of the New World Order, in whose name Washington justified changes in relationships and commitments.

In modern U.S. history, fundamental structural change culminated to produce changes in strategy - from the New World Order to Containment and back again - on six occasions. The first came during World War II. With victors and vanquished gravely weakened, except for the United States, the war opened the way to the hegemony of the United States and the Soviet Union in potential partnership. The second grew out of U.S.-Soviet postwar contention over the boundaries of the New World Order, which led to the Cold War and a shift in American strategy to global Containment.

The third change in strategy went almost unnoticed, occurring as John F. Kennedy attempted to shift away from Containment after the Cuban missile crisis, a shift cut short by his assassination. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, immediately reverted to Containment. The fourth change in strategy occurred during the war in Vietnam, when, despite President Nixon's apparent success in extricating the nation from that predicament, the United States returned to the New World Order. The fifth change, a return to Containment, followed the disastrous period of detente during the 1970s. Finally, during the Reagan administration, and after defeating Soviet strategy a second time, the decision was made to revert back to the New World Order.

When analyzing American foreign policy from a strategic perspective, the striking fact is that on the two occasions when the United States, under presidents Nixon and Reagan, defeated Soviet strategy, in 1972 and in 1986, the American leadership establishment shrank from the exploitation of success. On both occasions of apparent triumph, the United States changed strategy from Containment to the New World Order, in hopes of reaching an accommodation with Moscow. On both occasions the reasons for making the change centered on the contradictory premises of the need to avoid nuclear war and the presumed willingness of Soviet leaders to embrace detente. Furthermore, both changes in strategy were carried out by extra-legal means accompanied if not effected by domestic scandals.

*****

The first substantive iteration of American strategy came during World War II, as the United States moved toward victory and a new found global preeminence. The war permanently transfigured the American political scene, barring a return to anything like pre-war isolation, although a recidivist division between isolationists and internationalists persisted in some high quarters. The United States was henceforth a major actor with a permanent influence in the eastern hemisphere, from one end of the Eurasian landmass to the other. The chief question became the nature of America's involvement in this vast region, and therein lay the basis for the twin strategies of Containment and the New World Order.

Throughout the war years the question of post-war strategy preoccupied American (and no doubt all other) leaders as they grappled with the implications of various possible outcomes to the conflict. Both the strategies of contention and of cooperation with Moscow had been under discussion during the war, leading to the emergence of more or less permanent constituencies, that is, factions, favoring one or the other. Roosevelt favored cooperation with Moscow as the vehicle for American ascendancy, while his vice-president Harry Truman, was more inclined toward contention. (Indeed, to one degree or another, all American leaderships since Roosevelt have been coalition governments comprising proponents of both strategies, and transcending party affi liation.)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was predisposed against any reversion to the status quo ante bellum - a weak international system in which neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had played major roles. Britain could no longer play its former role of balancing forces on the continent, which would only have left open the possibility of a rapid reconstitution of German and Japanese power - and the future prospect of yet another world war. The wartime cooperation with the Soviets against the Axis powers led FDR to decide on a strategic partnership with the Soviet Union as the basis for a New World Order, in which the two formerly outside powers would cooperate in maintaining the post-war peace in both Europe and Asia.

Anticipating the passing of the old order dominated by Britain and France, the victors of World War I, and the permanent dismantling of German and Japanese power, FDR sought to reorganize the vast post-war power vacuums opening up in both Europe and Asia. He proposed in discussions with Stalin at Tehran and Yalta to include the Soviet Union as a central stabilizing element in the new, postwar order. FDR agreed to strengthen Soviet security by redrawing the map of Eurasia, create a buffer zone of friendly (pro-Soviet) states around the Soviet periphery, arrange for Soviet access to the open oceans from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and include Moscow in a revamped League of Nations, renamed the United Nations. Stalin's Russia would become a founding member of FDR's New World Order. It was an idea of lasting appeal that would never come to pass.

Hopes for Soviet cooperation in establishing a peaceful New World Order did not survive the president's death and began to evaporate before the war ended. Soviet territorial ambitions and the temptations of the moment to fill the power vacuums created by the defeats of Germany and Japan overcame all inducements for restraint. Moscow's determination to enlarge its postwar positions in Eastern Europe, Iran, and Manchuria left little choice for FDR's successor, Harry Truman, but to shift course to limit Soviet gains. Truman was in any case disinclined to overlook Soviet departures from wartime agreements and fully prepared to contend with Stalin. The resulting Cold War was thus a function of both Stalin's opportunistic expansionism and Truman's determination to consolidate the United States' newly won global position.

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