The Cold War

The Medcalfs at Caerdroia and Stephen Green at Vodkapundit have had an interesting cross-blog discussion regarding winning the war against terrorists and what parallels there are between this war and the Cold War. I wrote most of the following short essay in the comments section of the post linked in the title because the Medcalfs and Green had a flawed underlying thought process. I've added a couple of things here due to further reflection. This is the essay:

The notion that we merely did not lose the Cold War and that the enemy collapsed inward is a fallacy, and a dangerous one. In fact, the Cold War lasted for 44 years precisely because from 1946, when Truman realized the danger of the Soviet Union (essentially thanks to Churchill's Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Mo.), until 1981, we sought to "not lose" instead of seeking to win.

Consider that Truman's actions against the Soviet Union were basically defensive -- he set the stage for preventing enlargement of the Soviet empire and enacted both Containment and the Truman Doctrine. By the time Eisenhower became president, the Rosenbergs had helped the Soviets procure atomic weapon technology, therefore the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction came into effect. Ike also worked WITH the Soviets to win WWII, therefore he was not as antipathetically disposed to the USSR or communism as Reagan or JFK -- his lack of reaction to the Budapest uprising in 1956 speaks volumes.

Kennedy twice stared down the Russians; once he did so effectively. He was probably the most anti-Communist president of the US before Reagan, but his assassination minimized any effect his leadership could have against the Soviets. After the Gulf of Tonkin situation in 1964, LBJ's attention was primarily on Vietnam and he embroiled the US there.

Nixon came to power after the US military position in the world had become much weaker, thus he had to realpolitik the US through the treacherous international minefields laid by China and the USSR. His opening to China strengthened the US position; but still the US did not seek to "win" the Cold War. Ford did little other than follow Nixon and Kissinger's realpolitik. Carter was an unmitigated fiasco and did not want a Cold War (although Brezhnev did).

Reagan wanted to WIN the Cold War. He boosted US defense to try to get the Soviets to overspend on their own defense -- success. He rolled back communism in Grenada and Nicaragua and thereby demonstrated the fallibility of the Brezhnev Doctrine (once a country becomes communist, it stays communist). He had intermediate range missiles placed in West Germany to tell the Soviets that their threats against Western Europe can be countered (especially with the Pershing IIs that burrowed into the ground to detonate; purpose -- attacking Soviet command centers). He had a dynamic economy and fought the war of ideas against the Soviets. And on all these issues, Reagan won and ultimately caused the Soviet collapse.

Remember, the Cold War was allegedly unwinnable. Such BIG THINKERS as Arthur (A Democrat is Always Right) Schlesinger and John K. Galbraith thought that the Soviet economic system was stronger than that of the US and that a US challenge on economic grounds would fail. Reagan scoffed at that notion -- after all, we didn't have to wait 10 years for a car and just get a Lada or Travant; we had multiple kinds of toilet paper and people didn't wait on line for shoe allowances.

The Cold War for 36 years was really bilateral politicking through proxy wars (think of it as the Great Game in the nuclear age). Only in 1981 (and really in 1983-onward) was the Cold War actually a head-to-head engagement and the Soviets not only lost, the US won.