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Pastimes : A CENTURY OF LIONS/THE 20TH CENTURY TOP 100 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (1279)	11/9/1999 4:27:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3246

A prophecy fulfilled By Joseph Shattan In June 8, 1982, in his address to the British Parliament, President Reagan offered a then-startling prediction: Either the Soviet ruling class would change its political structure by allowing its people greater freedom or it would face certain defeat. "It has happened in the past," Mr. Reagan said. "A small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure or it chooses a wiser course." If the Soviet elite chose the wiser course of domestic reform, "prospects for arms control and a world at peace" would improve significantly. But if it tried to defend the status quo, "the march of freedom and democracy . . . will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people." At the time, many observers dismissed the president's remarks as empty rhetoric. Yet his words were not merely prophecy; they were also policy. The key foreign policy document of the Reagan era, National Security Decision Directive 75, echoed the speech. Policy toward the Soviet Union, it declared, was "to promote . . . the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite is gradually reduced." Though NSDD 75 was not formally issued until six months after the London speech, Mr. Reagan had effectively leaked his top-secret Soviet strategy -- designed to force Soviet leaders to choose between ruin and reform -- to the entire world. Not surprisingly, perhaps, hardly anyone was paying attention. After all, he was only an old B-movie actor, and a hopeless right-winger to boot. How could anyone take such a person seriously? But while liberals frequently disparaged Mr. Reagan's intellect, the fact was that he subscribed wholeheartedly to one major truth that many of his intellectually sophisticated critics either never knew or had forgotten: Societies that encourage freedom and creativity tend to flourish, while societies that suppress liberty tend to stagnate. This was the central truth around which Ronald Reagan fashioned his political career. This was the crucial insight that he articulated with passion and eloquence and pursued with iron resolve. And this was the basis of his Soviet strategy. Underlying Mr. Reagan's approach to the Soviet Union was his profound (his critics would say "childlike" or "simplistic") faith in freedom. Mr. Reagan simply knew that there was no way a closed society like the Soviet Union could prevail against an open society like the United States once the open society made up its mind to win. And Mr. Reagan, years before he became president, decided that the United States would win the Cold War. It was because of this implacable desire to win, no matter what, that Mr. Reagan's presidency merits the adjective "Churchillian." Also Churchillian was Mr. Reagan's determination to seize the offensive. The military buildup, the support of anti-communist movements worldwide (better known as the "Reagan Doctrine"), the Strategic Defense Initiative, the covert assistance to the Polish trade union Solidarity, the economic sanctions against Moscow -- all were meant to force an already shaky Soviet system to embark on a course of radical reform. These reforms (perestroika, glasnost) soon acquired a momentum of their own, and eventually brought down the Soviet Union. Mr. Reagan's approach to foreign policy was unprecedented. The traditional U.S. strategy was to seek to contain Soviet power and hope that, at some unspecified point in the future, containment would convince the communist ruling class to abandon its expansionist course. By contrast, Mr. Reagan sought not merely to contain the Soviets but to overwhelm them with demonstrations of U.S. power and resolve that left them with no alternative but to accept the choice he offered them: Change or face defeat. His success proved that great leadership does not depend on intellectual or historical sophistication. What is needed, above all, is the right set of convictions and the courage to stand by them. Mr. Reagan's beliefs about freedom and tyranny were uniquely rooted in the American experience, and his courage reflected the quiet self-confidence of the American heartland. His was truly a U.S. presidency that changed the world. This essay by Joseph Shattan, a former White House speech writer and Heritage Foundation Bradley fellow, is adapted from his book "Architects of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War" (Heritage Foundation, 1999).