Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, died this week. In the West he was hailed as the man who turned the Soviet Union away from communism and brought peace to the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize. In the former soviet states, especially Eastern Europe, he was honored as a man who freed them from the yoke of their Russian overlords without a war.
But in Russia, he is seen as the man who allowed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and condemned his own people in Mother Russia to a decade of privation and humiliation after he left office. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent his entire twenty some years in office trying to undo Gorbachev’s legacy – to return Russia to communism, regain some of its lost empire, and restore Russian greatness.
Putin blames Gorbachev personally for throwing away the Soviet Empire. But in many respects, Gorbachev had few options when he took office in 1985. In the late 1970’s the Soviet Union was at the zenith of power. By 1985 it was suffering a stunning and rapid decline.
Why? Because five years before, the American people elected Ronald Reagan, who reversed the course of history.
LEE EDWARDS: HOW REAGAN DOCTRINE BROUGHT DOWN THE EVIL EMPIRE
When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980 the country was in a similar situation as today – runaway inflation, a stagnant economy, and in retreat around the world after a long running failed foreign war. The Arab oil embargo of the 1970’s had driven global energy prices sky high, giving the oil-exporting Soviet Union record profits. They used the windfall to launch a military buildup, develop a more capable and lethal nuclear arsenal and expanded globally. They launched proxy wars with Communist allies worldwide.
By the late 1970s it seemed like the U.S. was in irreversible decline. American thought leaders praised the communism as the wave of the future. Even Nobel Laureate John Kenneth Galbraith, the most renowned economist of the day, said the Soviet planned economy was superior to American free markets.
Ronald Reagan disagreed. He believed the fundamental flaws of communism – a centrally planned economy and self-perpetuating Communist party dictatorship – would inevitably cause the Soviet Union to collapse from within. His goal was to speed it along with Peace through Strength. It sounded like a bumper sticker slogan. Actually, it was a comprehensive and ambitious strategic plan to win the Cold War without firing a shot.
Reagan wanted a strong military to deter the Soviet Union, not to defeat it on the battlefield. At the same time, he would use our economic, technological, and ideological superiority to target the Soviet Union’s inherent weaknesses. He hoped an enlightened Soviet leader would eventually come to power and make changes necessary for survival of the Russian people. Mikhail Gorbachev was that man.
Reagan’s Peace through Strength rested on three pillars: reinvigorating the American economy, rebuilding America’s military strength, and restoring a sense of patriotism and purpose in the American people.
The Reagan defense buildup checkmated the Soviet Union’s military buildup of the 1970s. His emphasis on creating strong alliances, especially with the British Prime Minister and the Pope. helped neutralized Soviet expansionism. That got equilibrium back into geopolitics.
To take the U.S. economy and security to the next level, too not just coexist with the Soviet Union but actually win the Cold War, Reagan needed to halve their oil profits. Reagan encouraged the King of Saudi Arabia to pump more oil. Prices went from $40 to $18 a barrel in nine months, halving Moscow’s revenues.
At the same time, the U.S. imposed severe restrictions on transfer of superior American technology to the backward Soviet Union and shut down third party workarounds. Reagan also urged American banks to stop extending loans to Russia.
Reagan’s proposal to begin research and development of ‘Star Wars’ missile defense system shook the confidence of Soviet leaders. They were barely keeping up with the U.S. in the current arms race, they had neither the resources nor the technology to join a missile defense race.
By the late 1980’s the Soviet Union was broke. Several years of failed and mismanaged what harvests exacerbated their woes. Although long considered one of the breadbaskets of the world, the Soviet Union literally could not feed their people, could not borrow from the West to pay for imported wheat, and was facing an imminent humanitarian crisis.
Gorbachev advisor Anatoly Chubais later admitted the Russian president had no choice but to settle the Cold War on America’s terms.
Curiously, much of the American commentary on Gorbachev’s death gives Reagan scant credit for engineering the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead, they praise Gorbachev for handling peacefully the inevitable collapse of the Soviet empire.
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Our Cold War victory has never been accepted by today’s generation of communist leaders. In Putin’s Russia, Gorbachev is blamed for losing the Soviet Empire. A headline in the Chinese media reads, "Gorbachev: A Loser."
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Today the United States is grappling with a new and more powerful adversary, communist China. Like the Soviet Union, China aims to replace the U.S. as the world’s sole superpower. Unlike the Soviet Union, China is technologically advanced, economically diverse, and far more single-minded in its diplomacy and disciplined in engineering its ascent.
America’s victory in this new Cold War is far from certain. But a good place to start would be an updated version of Reagan’s Peace through Strength.