The End of the Cold War

So both Judt, in Postwar, and Gaddis, in The Cold War: A New History, agree that Mikhail Gorbachev is the person most responsible for the end of the Cold War. But neither account paints a very flattering portrait of Gorby. Both scholars agree that, while Gorby recognized that the Soviet system was just not sustainable, he really didn't have any substantive ideas about what to do about it. Glasnost and perestroika were slogans, policy goals without actual, um, policy. So he started to "reform" without any ideas about where it was leading. (That might be why he was so surprised when the coup in 1991 happened?)

Most tellingly, even before Gorby, the Soviet leadership had determined that the Brezhnev Doctrine was dead. By which, I mean, that the Soviets had determined that they wouldn't repeat the invasion of Czechoslavakia, in response to the Prague Spring of 1968, or the invasion of Hungary in 1956, were uprisings to roil one of the "fraternal" nations of Eastern Europe. According to Gaddis, the Soviet leadership was concerned that another such invasion would cause more trouble than it was worth. The Red Army troops sent into Czechoslavakia had been told that they would be greeted as liberators, and that had proven not to be the case, which actually caused discipline problems. Plus, there was the damage that the Communist revolutionary movement suffered whenever it had to put down popular dissatisfaction with tanks (or build a wall to keep its citizens in). Gaddis claims that the Soviets were bluffing about inading Poland in the early 80's, when the Polish government imposed martial law because of a fear of a Soviet invasion.

Basically what happened in 1989, then, was that popular movements, disgusted with their low standards of living, lack of basic freedoms, etc., started to dissent and were met by Soviet inaction. Gorby made clear to the leaders of the fraternal nations that their problems were their own . . . at which point, regimes without significant popular support were forced to either reform, which was untenable for the then-leadership to attempt, or to crackdown, at which point their public support would evaporate and they would fall. There were sinply no Red Army tanks to prop them up, so they fell, in quick succession.

Things could have been much worse. (Gaddis especially points out how few people died in the 1989 revolutions.) The reason Gorbachev is "most responsible" for this fortunate chain of events is the decision, carried out, to stand aside and let things run their course in the fraternal nations of Eastern Europe.

The only reason that such an eventuality could result, of course, was that the West had acted, mostly in concert, to contain Soviet expansionism, and had pursued its own course of economic prosperity and freedom. In the end, the western alliance had not needed to fire a shot to bring down the "evil empire." The Cold War, then, was resolved through political leaders, from Truman through Reagan, temporizing.

This is yet another one of the points that our current leaders don't really grasp. If you are faced with evil regimes that lack popular support, but have weapons, it might be the best course to temporize, make the most of a bad situation, work around the edges, push for negotiation, and, well, wait. Wait for a change in leadership. What for a change in context, in domestic politics within the evil regime. Because if the regime you are seeking to change ("regime change") is one that genuinely lacks popular support, the worst course of action to keep it permanently on a war footing. Because even unpopular leaders can generate domestic political support when there is a threat from an enemy without--an enemy easily characterized as evil. Propaganda works, but it needs something to work with. That's why efforts at detente, although unpopular with hard-liners, are so dangerous for tyrants. Because if "the Leader" is going to do business with the "evil" capitalist dogs, then the propaganda doesn't work so well. And if you erode domestic support generated from fear of an external enemy, then regimes without popular support internally become much weaker.

Or, of course, you can pound the war drums and threaten air strikes. Against Iran, for example. But that will almost certainly increase popular support for the mullahs. Imagine, on the other hand, how weak the mullahs would become if the U.S. administration made security guarantees to the Iranian regime. If the U.S. promised to respect Iranian sovereignty and territory, and maybe even reduced its presence in the Persian Gulf, then the flowering of a reform movement in Iran would face fewer obstacles. But right now, the mullahs can use the threats of the Bush administration to stifle internal dissent.

Again, I just read this in a book. But maybe some of the "grownups" have other ideas.