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Whatever happended to the ‘Second’ Cold War? Soviet—American relations: 1980–1988*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Michael Cox
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Extract

During his eight years in office Ronald Reagan attempted not only to dominate the US political scene but to establish a clear neo-conservative agenda for the American nation. When he came to power he had two main objectives. The first was to roll back the hand of government, for as he put it, ‘the ills of a nation stem from a single source: the belief that government… has the answer to our ills’. The second was to rebuild America's position in the world after the so-called ‘decade of neglect.’ Naturally, Reagan delighted the new right with his attacks on liberalism at home and the Soviet Union abroad. However, one suspects he frightened an equal number by raising issues (like abortion) which many had long thought settled, while implying that the only solution to complex international questions was American firepower. And even though many American intellectuals may have despised the new President for his apparent simple-mindedness, his optimism about the American future and his heroic view of the American past did much to endear him to a large cross-section of the American people. Reagan believed in the American dream and attempted to convince his fellow citizens that they ought to believe in it too.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 155 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1990

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References

1 Cited in Brady, James S. (ed.), Ronald Reagan. A Man True to his Word (Washington, 1984), p. 49.Google Scholar

2 In April 1984, Reagan argued that ‘the United States remained a virtual spectator in the 1970s, a decade of neglect that took a severe toll on our defense capabilities’. In Realism, Strength, Negotiation: Key Foreign Policy Statements of the Reagan Administration (Washington, May 1984), p. 11.

3 Baker, James, Power For Good: American Foreign Policy in the New Era (Washington, 04 1989), p. 1.Google Scholar

4 See Bush, George, Change in the Soviet Union (Washington, 05 1989), p. 1Google Scholar

5 For other attempts by the author to analyse superpower relations in the modern era, see my ‘Western Capitalism and the Cold War System’, in Shaw, Martin (ed.), War, State and Society (London, 1984), pp. 136–194CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘From Detente to the “New Cold War”: The Crisis of the Cold War System’, Millennium 13 (1984), pp. 265-9]; ‘In Search Of The Second Cold War’, Irish Slavonic Studies 5 (1984), pp. 205-12; ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Soviet Threat”’, Political Studies 33 (1985), pp. 484-98; ‘The Cold War as a System’, Critique 17 (1986), pp. 17-82; ‘Soviet-American Conflict in the Third World’, in Shearman, Peter and Williams, Phil (eds.), The Superpowers, Central America and the Middle East (London, 1988, pp. 171–185Google Scholar, and (ed.), Beyond the Cold War: Superpowers at the Crossroads? (London, 1990). See also my forthcoming ‘“Hoist the White Flag”: Soviet Foreign Policy in an Er a of Decline’, Critique 22 (1989); ‘From the Truman Doctrine to the Second Superpower Detente—The Rise and Fall of the Cold War’, Journal Of Peace Research 27 (1990); and ‘George Kennan and the Russian Question’, Irish Slavonic Studies 11 (1990).

6 For critiques of the realignment thesis see the essays by Ranney, Austin, Polsby, Nelson, Schneider, William, Wilson, James Q. and Wolfinger, Raymond in Ranney, Austin (ed.), The American Elections of 1984 (North Carolina, 1985).Google Scholar

7 Nacht, Michael, ‘Toward an American Conception of Regional Security’, Daedalus 110 (1981), p. 8.Google Scholar

8 Quotes from The Decline of U.S. Power (and What We can do About It) (Boston, 1980), pp. 1, 3.

9 The notion that containment had collapsed in the 70s was expressed by Reagan in a speech he gave in April 1984. ‘The simple fact’ he noted, ‘is that in the last half of the 1970s we were not deterring, as events from Angola to Afghanistan made clear’.See Realism, Strength, Negotiation, p . 11.

10 However, according to an influential American official in the Reagan administration, Soviet expansion i n the Third World in the 70s ‘stimulated resistance, provoked the development of countervailing sources of power, and awakened us to the dangers of weakness and timidity’. See Armacost, Michael H., Reflections on U.S.-Soviet Relations (Washington, 05 1985), p. 3.Google Scholar

11 In May 1976 the CIA revised its figures for the Soviet military burden upwards from 6-8 per cent of GNP to 11-13 per cent. This burden was problematic enough. What made it critical was th e fact that the economy was slowing down as well. This ‘slowdown in economic growth’, the CIA predicted in August 1977, ‘could trigger intense debate in Moscow over future levels and pattern of military expenditures’. The agency expected ‘defense spending to continue to increase in the next few years at something like recent annual rates of 4 to 5 percent because of programs in train. As the economy slows, however, ways to reduce the growth of defense expenditures could become increasingly pressing for some elements of the Soviet leadership’ Soviet Economic Problems And Prospects (Washington, August 1977), p. ix.

12 On the crisis of Soviet communism in the 80s see Pipes, Richard, Survival is not Enough (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

13 Soviet attempts to exploit the ‘West European card’ after 1980 are analysed by Pierre Hassner, ‘Moscow and the Western Alliance’, Problems of Communism 30 (1981), pp. 37–54.Google Scholar

14 On the Soviet Union's utilisation of the ‘peace’ issue in Western Europe, see Emerson Vermaat, J. A., ‘Moscow Fronts and the European Peace Movement’, Problems of Communism 31 (1982), pp. 43–56.Google Scholar

15 See Gurevich, Vladimir, Disarmament and Development (Moscow, 1987), pp. 6–16.Google Scholar

16 Halliday, Fred, The Making of the Second Cold War (London, 1983), p. 261.Google Scholar

17 As late as summer 1988 Fred Halliday still insisted that ‘image and mood [had] changed more than substance’ in the superpower relationship. See his ‘The Ron and Mik Show’, Marxism Today, 06 (1988), pp. 16–21.Google Scholar

18 See Macfarlane, Robert, ‘Reagan: Architect of Perestroika’, in the (London) Daily Telegraph, 11 08 1988.Google Scholar

19 For a standard liberal view of the Soviet economy in 1980, see Hough, Jerry F., Soviet Leadership in Transition (Washington, 1980), pp. 131–149.Google Scholar

20 See Gorbachev, Mikhail, Perestroika: New Thinkingfor Our Country and the World (London, 1988), esp. pp. 17–24.Google Scholar

21 On Soviet ‘New Thinking’ in the Third World see, for example, Shearman, Peter, ‘Gorbachev and the Third World: An Era of Reform?’ Third World Quarterly 9 (1987), pp. 1083–1117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Cited in Moscow News 39 (1988).

23 For a short guide to some of the early strains caused in the NATO alliance by Reagan's policies, see Williams, Phil, ‘Europe, America and the Soviet threat’, World Today 38 (1982), pp. 373–381.Google Scholar

24 A not untypical headline in the American press after October 1987 was the one which appeared in the Washington Post on 15 November 1987. It read ‘Military Strength, Economic Weakness’. Its author, Hobart Rowan, cited some interesting facts—the most significant perhaps being a recent poll commissioned by the World Policy Institute in New York. This revealed that by a ‘4 to 1 ratio’ those interviewed said it was ‘more important for Congress and the president to invest in the economy than the military’. Also, 80 per cent of those polled wanted more spending on education and promoting economic growth, while ‘only 28 per cent wanted more on defense’—a far cry from the mood in 1979 and 1980.

25 The issue of declining US competitiveness is thoroughly discussed in Scott, Bruce R. and Lodge, George C. (eds), U.S. Competitiveness in the World Economy (Boston, 1985).Google Scholar

26 Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 (New York, 1988).Google Scholar

27 See Kennedy, Paul, ‘What Gorbachev is up Against’, The Atlantic Monthly 06 (1987), pp. 29–43Google Scholar; and ‘The (Relative) Decline of America’, The Atlantic Monthly 08 (1987), pp. 29–38.Google Scholar

28 In April 1988, William Verity (the US Trade Secretary) visited Moscow to examine the possibility of boosting US-Soviet trade from its very low level up to $5 bn—possibly $10 bn. However, he refused to budge on the issue of granting the USSR Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status. No r did he promise much in the way of US government credits. He also ruled out Soviet membership of GATT and other international economic bodies on the grounds that the USSR was not a ‘market economy’. See the (London) Financial Times, 12, 15 and 26 April 1988. For a pessimistic view on the future of East-West trade in general, see Financial Times Survey: East-West Trade, 13 December 1988, pp. 37-40.

29 The Baker quotes are from Power for the Good, p. 3; and The Challenge of Change in U.S.-Soviet Relations (Washington, May 1989), p. 2. See ‘Do-Nothing Detente’, Time magazine, 15 05 1989, pp. 10–18Google Scholar, and ‘After the Cold War’, Newsweek, 15 05 1989, pp. 8–19Google Scholar for an analysis of the Bush response (or lack of it) to Gorbachev. American scepticism about Gorbachev's chances of reforming the Soviet economy was particularly well illustrated in a speech given in late 1988 by the Deputy Director of the CIA. According to Robert Gates: ‘It is by no means certain—I would even say it is doubtful—that in the end Gorbachev can rejuvenate the system’. See ‘Gorbachev: What the CIA Thinks’, Sunday Times (London), 30 10 1988.Google Scholar

30 On the potential threats to new ‘detente’ see Williams, Phil. U.S.-Soviet relations beyond the Cold War?, International Affairs 65 (1989), pp. 273–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 The problem of definition is raised in an extremely sharp form by D. J. Markwell in the review essay ‘The Cold War, Old And New’, in The Round Table, 01 1989, pp. 122–126.Google Scholar

32 For an unofficial US proposal to develop a more active strategy towards the USSR, see Nye, Josephet al, How Should America Respond to Gorbachev's Challenge? A Report of the Task Force on Soviet New Thinking (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

33 The Economist had some pertinent things to say on the issue of life without Stalinism. In a lead editorial it made the entirely legitimate observation that the West had been helped since 1947 because the USSR ‘has been an undemocratic police state of the worst kind; its economy… has done shamefully badly; and it has been a geopolitical menace’. If the Soviet Union were to change this would inevitably ‘Impose a severe test on the West’. See ‘Would a Rich Russia be a Cuddly Russia?’, Economist, 14-20 02 1987, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

34 The concept of the ‘long peace’ has been most systematically analysed by John L. Gaddis. See his ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’, International Security 10 (1986), pp. 99–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar