The_Finman
12-07-2002, 01:19 PM
<h2><font color=#003399>How Ronald Reagan won the Cold War.</font></h2>
By Peter Schweizer
Fifty years ago, philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay titled "The Hedgehog and the Fox."
Quoting from the Greek poet Archilochus, who said, "The Fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing," Berlin divided the world into two types of people.
Foxes pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory.
Their actions are connected by no aesthetic or moral principle.
Hedgehogs, on the other hand, relate everything to a single central vision, a single universal organizing principle that defines what they think and believe.
Most people are foxes; Ronald Reagan was a hedgehog.
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SgDeAtYWQmd73xaj1KK*T*VQxWXr6QB!eHbcjpESsBZXqq1Y6 5DxmPvasyGfpyEjlyEcx4yxY47UxqzchrNXE6txHD*7!CKbwx2 gNkYY6PS4QfskF9B*Rg/reagan13_small.jpgThe "one big thing" Reagan knew was the power and value of human freedom, which proved to be the defining principle of his worldview.
It guided what he thought about domestic politics and was central to his vision for the world.
For more than 30 years, Reagan embraced a vision for dealing with the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War that was remarkably consistent and proved to be decisive.
People who note his apparent lack of interest in the details of diplomacy, missile throw weights, and international law fail to see his larger strategic vision.
Details that animate so many in the world of politics, academe, and journalism did not interest him so much as the "metaphysics" of the Cold War.
He was, in short, a hedgehog living in a world populated with foxes.
Ronald Reagan is impossible to understand outside of his 40-year battle against communism.
It was a struggle that consumed more of his attention than any other endeavor and touched the very center of his life.
It cost him his first marriage and brought him his second wife; it damaged his relationship with his children; death threats while waging it left him sitting up at night, guarding his kids with a .32-caliber pistol; and it brought him three assassination attempts.
When a fourth deranged assassin named John Hinckley took him an inch from death, Reagan came to believe that his life had been spared by God for a divine purpose: defeating communism.
But if it is impossible to understand Reagan separate from his war, it is likewise not possible to understand the collapse of the Soviet Union separate from Ronald Reagan; the two are intertwined.
Walking the Difficult Path Two virtues that Ronald Reagan so admired---courage and character---are what his nearly half-century battle against communism required most.
Beginning in Hollywood and throughout his presidency, Reagan was always willing to speak the truth about communism.
Sometimes his strong views brought physical threats against his life and family.
More often, they would prompt ridicule or denunciation of him as a dangerous ignoramus.
In either case, Reagan unflinchingly pressed on, opposed by old friends, cabinet officers, and sometimes even members of his own family.
A public life by definition depends in large part on public opinion.
For politicians, failure to pay attention to public opinion means professional death.
Over the course of U.S. history, American presidents have certainly demonstrated a willingness to challenge public opinion and proceed down a difficult path they view as necessary.
One thinks of Lincoln on the eve of the American Civil War.
But in the twentieth century, few American presidents have proven to be as immune to public criticism as Reagan was.
Some, like Eisenhower, were cautious in the face of the critics and conservative by temperament.
Others, like FDR, were reluctant to step ahead of public opinion.
Even Richard Nixon, who claimed loudly to shun the opinions of the establishment, was still captive to it, concerned about how he was viewed or would be remembered.
But throughout the course of his public life, Reagan was strangely impervious to public opinion.
While recognizing and appreciating the realities of electoral politics, Reagan was steadfast in his execution of the war against communism.
In the face of poll numbers that showed widespread disapproval of his defense and foreign policies, criticism from elder statesmen, ridicule from the media, and withering attacks from his political opponents, Reagan didn't seem bothered.
He embodied the sense of rugged individualism that we so often associate with cowboys of the Old West; Reagan was truly his own man.
Of course, Reagan was a master politician.
He understood the value of symbols and images in winning votes.
But he was about more than his personal ambitions or vacant symbolism.
He believed in ideas much larger than himself; and his ideas did not shift over the course of his public life, nor did he ever attempt to camouflage them.
When they seemed unpopular, he clung to them stubbornly.
When established opinion called them simpleminded, he smiled and pressed ahead.
Reagan cared deeply about these ideas; he would not jettison them simply to collect more votes.
When Reagan thought about the world, he did not do it in the abstract way of most academics.
If ideas did have consequences, Reagan believed that embracing and advocating the right ideas was the best way to be a leader of consequence.
He had not only his views about policies but a worldview, and he had a strong sense of his place and America's in the currents of history.
When he spoke about the Cold War, his words were charged with a sense of personal conviction unlike that of any other Cold War president.
Some no doubt will challenge or disagree with his view of the world, but few if any would question his sincerity.
In retrospect, it is clear that Reagan was largely correct about communism and his critics were wrong.
Soviet communism was the threat that he claimed it was and was vulnerable in the way he said it would be.
He was on the correct side of the great battles of the struggle against communism.
Moscow and its supporters did try to gain a level of control in Hollywood; the peace movement in the 1970s and 1980s was being influenced by the Soviet Union; and Moscow and Havana did have plans to subvert Central America.
Archives in the former Soviet bloc settle these debates.
He also predicted that the Soviet Union would "end up on the ash heap of history" half a dozen years before others saw it.
How did a C student in economics from Eureka College envision all of this?
It is difficult to say with complete certainty.
There were external influences over the course of the Cold War that directed and focused his thinking, as well as concepts and ideas that he developed on his own.
But far from being a simple conduit for presidential aides and others who believed only they knew the proper course of action, Reagan embraced many of these ideas before he was president.
Courage, it seems, made all the difference, an important lesson in an age when supreme importance seems to be placed on the intelligence of our leaders rather than their courage.
Even anti-Communists like Richard Nixon subscribed to the seductive idea that stability was most important and that a healthy Soviet Union was important for long-term peace.
But Reagan understood that communism by its nature was a danger to peace because it relied on fear and external enemies to maintain its legitimacy.
Only by its defeat would the Cold War end, so he chose to force tensions to a decisive conclusion rather than hiding them.
He launched the Strategic Defense Initiative almost entirely by himself, informing his secretary of state and most other advisers only hours before he announced his plans to the public.
When he took a hard line over the declaration of martial law in Poland in an effort to keep Solidarity alive, he did so with scant support from any major ally save Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher.
According to Sergei Tarasenko, an official in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, it made crystal clear that Moscow could not use force to hold its crumbling empire together.
In mid-October, the East German city of Leipzig was illuminated by the light of thousands of candles as people gathered and sang "Dona Nobis Pacem."
On November 9, the Berlin Wall was breached and thousands of East Germans surged through the Wall's crossing points and were greeted by West Berliners carrying champagne.
Full Article<font color="red"><u>Here</u></font> (http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/024/schweizer.html)
By Peter Schweizer
Fifty years ago, philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay titled "The Hedgehog and the Fox."
Quoting from the Greek poet Archilochus, who said, "The Fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing," Berlin divided the world into two types of people.
Foxes pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory.
Their actions are connected by no aesthetic or moral principle.
Hedgehogs, on the other hand, relate everything to a single central vision, a single universal organizing principle that defines what they think and believe.
Most people are foxes; Ronald Reagan was a hedgehog.
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SgDeAtYWQmd73xaj1KK*T*VQxWXr6QB!eHbcjpESsBZXqq1Y6 5DxmPvasyGfpyEjlyEcx4yxY47UxqzchrNXE6txHD*7!CKbwx2 gNkYY6PS4QfskF9B*Rg/reagan13_small.jpgThe "one big thing" Reagan knew was the power and value of human freedom, which proved to be the defining principle of his worldview.
It guided what he thought about domestic politics and was central to his vision for the world.
For more than 30 years, Reagan embraced a vision for dealing with the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War that was remarkably consistent and proved to be decisive.
People who note his apparent lack of interest in the details of diplomacy, missile throw weights, and international law fail to see his larger strategic vision.
Details that animate so many in the world of politics, academe, and journalism did not interest him so much as the "metaphysics" of the Cold War.
He was, in short, a hedgehog living in a world populated with foxes.
Ronald Reagan is impossible to understand outside of his 40-year battle against communism.
It was a struggle that consumed more of his attention than any other endeavor and touched the very center of his life.
It cost him his first marriage and brought him his second wife; it damaged his relationship with his children; death threats while waging it left him sitting up at night, guarding his kids with a .32-caliber pistol; and it brought him three assassination attempts.
When a fourth deranged assassin named John Hinckley took him an inch from death, Reagan came to believe that his life had been spared by God for a divine purpose: defeating communism.
But if it is impossible to understand Reagan separate from his war, it is likewise not possible to understand the collapse of the Soviet Union separate from Ronald Reagan; the two are intertwined.
Walking the Difficult Path Two virtues that Ronald Reagan so admired---courage and character---are what his nearly half-century battle against communism required most.
Beginning in Hollywood and throughout his presidency, Reagan was always willing to speak the truth about communism.
Sometimes his strong views brought physical threats against his life and family.
More often, they would prompt ridicule or denunciation of him as a dangerous ignoramus.
In either case, Reagan unflinchingly pressed on, opposed by old friends, cabinet officers, and sometimes even members of his own family.
A public life by definition depends in large part on public opinion.
For politicians, failure to pay attention to public opinion means professional death.
Over the course of U.S. history, American presidents have certainly demonstrated a willingness to challenge public opinion and proceed down a difficult path they view as necessary.
One thinks of Lincoln on the eve of the American Civil War.
But in the twentieth century, few American presidents have proven to be as immune to public criticism as Reagan was.
Some, like Eisenhower, were cautious in the face of the critics and conservative by temperament.
Others, like FDR, were reluctant to step ahead of public opinion.
Even Richard Nixon, who claimed loudly to shun the opinions of the establishment, was still captive to it, concerned about how he was viewed or would be remembered.
But throughout the course of his public life, Reagan was strangely impervious to public opinion.
While recognizing and appreciating the realities of electoral politics, Reagan was steadfast in his execution of the war against communism.
In the face of poll numbers that showed widespread disapproval of his defense and foreign policies, criticism from elder statesmen, ridicule from the media, and withering attacks from his political opponents, Reagan didn't seem bothered.
He embodied the sense of rugged individualism that we so often associate with cowboys of the Old West; Reagan was truly his own man.
Of course, Reagan was a master politician.
He understood the value of symbols and images in winning votes.
But he was about more than his personal ambitions or vacant symbolism.
He believed in ideas much larger than himself; and his ideas did not shift over the course of his public life, nor did he ever attempt to camouflage them.
When they seemed unpopular, he clung to them stubbornly.
When established opinion called them simpleminded, he smiled and pressed ahead.
Reagan cared deeply about these ideas; he would not jettison them simply to collect more votes.
When Reagan thought about the world, he did not do it in the abstract way of most academics.
If ideas did have consequences, Reagan believed that embracing and advocating the right ideas was the best way to be a leader of consequence.
He had not only his views about policies but a worldview, and he had a strong sense of his place and America's in the currents of history.
When he spoke about the Cold War, his words were charged with a sense of personal conviction unlike that of any other Cold War president.
Some no doubt will challenge or disagree with his view of the world, but few if any would question his sincerity.
In retrospect, it is clear that Reagan was largely correct about communism and his critics were wrong.
Soviet communism was the threat that he claimed it was and was vulnerable in the way he said it would be.
He was on the correct side of the great battles of the struggle against communism.
Moscow and its supporters did try to gain a level of control in Hollywood; the peace movement in the 1970s and 1980s was being influenced by the Soviet Union; and Moscow and Havana did have plans to subvert Central America.
Archives in the former Soviet bloc settle these debates.
He also predicted that the Soviet Union would "end up on the ash heap of history" half a dozen years before others saw it.
How did a C student in economics from Eureka College envision all of this?
It is difficult to say with complete certainty.
There were external influences over the course of the Cold War that directed and focused his thinking, as well as concepts and ideas that he developed on his own.
But far from being a simple conduit for presidential aides and others who believed only they knew the proper course of action, Reagan embraced many of these ideas before he was president.
Courage, it seems, made all the difference, an important lesson in an age when supreme importance seems to be placed on the intelligence of our leaders rather than their courage.
Even anti-Communists like Richard Nixon subscribed to the seductive idea that stability was most important and that a healthy Soviet Union was important for long-term peace.
But Reagan understood that communism by its nature was a danger to peace because it relied on fear and external enemies to maintain its legitimacy.
Only by its defeat would the Cold War end, so he chose to force tensions to a decisive conclusion rather than hiding them.
He launched the Strategic Defense Initiative almost entirely by himself, informing his secretary of state and most other advisers only hours before he announced his plans to the public.
When he took a hard line over the declaration of martial law in Poland in an effort to keep Solidarity alive, he did so with scant support from any major ally save Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher.
According to Sergei Tarasenko, an official in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, it made crystal clear that Moscow could not use force to hold its crumbling empire together.
In mid-October, the East German city of Leipzig was illuminated by the light of thousands of candles as people gathered and sang "Dona Nobis Pacem."
On November 9, the Berlin Wall was breached and thousands of East Germans surged through the Wall's crossing points and were greeted by West Berliners carrying champagne.
Full Article<font color="red"><u>Here</u></font> (http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/024/schweizer.html)