Alongside the surging nuclear arsenals, proxy wars became the new emblems of the Cold War. These wars—in South America, the Middle East, and elsewhere—were often fueled and supported by secret CIA operations on the U.S. side, and corresponding acts of secret destabilization and militarization on the Soviet side. As such, they constituted wars within wars, often effectively unsupervised by political authorities and feeding the most extreme ideological, militaristic, or even personal agendas on each side.
Vietnam was America’s greatest blunder of the Cold War; Afghanistan proved to be even more devastating for the Soviet Union. In the mid- to late 1970s, impoverished Afghanistan fell into paroxysms of instability in a series of coups and countercoups, exacerbated by regional instability, including the Iranian Revolution, the Indian nuclear tests in 1974, the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace agreement (which was viewed by the Soviet Union as a threat to Soviet influence in the Middle East), and extreme tensions with neighboring Pakistan. In 1979, the Soviet Union made the fateful decision to intervene in order to support a Soviet-favored faction. This in turn provoked the United States to support an international force of Islamic fighters, the mujahideen, who were organized and funded by the CIA.19 The Afghanistan war proved even more of a drain on the finances, the morale, and the military capacity of the Soviet Union than the Vietnam War was for the United States. The bloody and costly debacle, ended by Mikhail Gorbachev only in 1989, was one of the factors leading to the Soviet economic crisis of the late 1980s, which in turn helped to precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The End of the Cold War
The end of the Cold War was shocking on several fronts. Most amazing, of course, was its rapidity, predicted by almost nobody.20 The Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, and the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, a dozen years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which had been seen by some in the United States as a high-water mark of Soviet global power. A country with more than 40,000 nuclear weapons and a massive internal security apparatus collapsed in disarray.
There are countless views about the causes of the end of the Soviet Union, and these conflicting interpretations may never be resolved. To the American anti-communist hardliners, Ronald Reagan’s aggressive posture was the decisive margin of victory. According to this view, he had re-instilled an arms race that the Soviet Union could not match. Later, he had charmed Gorbachev, so the story goes, into concessions that otherwise would not have been made.
Yet the demise of the Soviet Union was vastly more complex than this. Many other leaders played important roles. John Paul II, the Polish pope, was another decisive force, re-instilling hope, nationalism, anti-communist fervor, and faith in a country reeling from martial law under the Soviet shadow. Great and brave dissidents from Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov to Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and others in Eastern Europe had a profound effect on undermining the legitimacy of the Soviet regime. The 1975 Helsinki Declaration, including Article VII on human rights, created a far more powerful norm of human rights across the communist world than the Soviet leaders (and nearly everybody else) imagined possible at the time. Here was Churchill and Kennan’s ultimate insight at play: that even a tightly closed Soviet system would ultimately wither under exposure to a more open world. So too did unexpected events accelerate the collapse of the Soviet state, notably the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the collapse of world oil prices in the 1980s.
In the end, the Soviet Union and its economic and political system unraveled through a concatenation of economic and geopolitical events. Gorbachev deserves the world’s supreme credit as the highest practitioner of peace, the greatest statesman of the age. As the Soviet economy spiraled downward, as Soviet power in Eastern Europe came unstuck, as the disastrous Afghan War ate away at the nation’s morale, as internal dissension in Russia and throughout the non-Russian states threatened the sovereignty of the nation itself, Gorbachev himself held firm: No violence would be deployed to hold the Soviet Union in place. This was the fundamental departure from all that had gone before. For this, Gorbachev merits the world’s highest approbation. One wonders how many politicians of any ilk in any part of the world would have displayed such fortitude for peace in the midst of such earth-shaking events.
Yet the fairest verdict of all is that the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, not because of the Cold War, not because of a single personality or particular adverse events, but because the organization of the Soviet economy and political system proved to be fatally flawed. The planned economy was simply a bad idea, one that had shown certain early merits—namely in rapid heavy industrialization—but was beset by far deeper long-term flaws: the lack of incentives, the lack of technological dynamism, the inability to plan an entire economy, and the relative isolation of the Soviet economy from technological advances occurring in the rest of the world.
It is useful to recall two great thinkers as we today ponder the demise of the Soviet Union. The first is John Maynard Keynes, the greatest political economist of the twentieth century. He had occasion to visit Russia in 1925, to form a judgment about the new communist order just taking hold. His economic judgment was damning, complete, and fully vindicated in time:
On the economic side I cannot perceive that Russian Communism had made any contribution to our economic problems of intellectual interest or scientific value. I do not think that it contains, or is likely to contain, any piece of useful economic technique which we could not apply, if we chose, with equal or greater success in a society which retained all the marks, I will not say of nineteenth-century individualistic capitalism, but of British bourgeois ideals.21
Still, Keynes wondered whether beneath the “cruelty and stupidity of New Russia some speck of the ideal may lay hid.” Could the revolution usher in new ideas regarding human values that would prove of lasting worth in social organization?
A second great thinker, George Kennan, believed that the answer was no. The grand architect of America’s containment policy, the author of the influential Long Telegram and “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,”† believed that containment of the Soviet Union would succeed not because America’s military power would vanquish the communist foe but because the flaws of the Soviet system would cause the system to change from within. Kennan, like Keynes, believed that the Soviet model was deeply unsound, and that internal discontents would eventually bring the system down. The U.S. challenge was to meet Soviet threats along the way, so that in the course of time the messianism of the Soviet system would be forced back to reality:
It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone could exercise a power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the breakup or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power. For no mystical, Messianic movement—and particularly not that of the Kremlin—can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.22
Kennan surmised “that the possibility remains (and in the opinion of this writer it is a strong one) that Soviet power, like the capitalist world of its conception, bears within it the seeds of its own decay, and that the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced.”
The great challenge of U.S.-Soviet relations, wrote Kennan, was therefore not of a military variety, still less of a nuclear arms race. It was one of values:
The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.23
A Summing Up
The ultimate meaning of Kennedy’s peace initiative therefore lay not in the tactics, nor in the success of the test ban treaty, nor even in the laying of the groundwork for nuclear non-proliferation and further arms agreements. Nor are the undeniable and even devastating setbacks—the Vietnam War, the dangerous and costly nuclear arms race, the terrible and costly proxy wars, the military-industrial complex, and the dangers of a security state—proofs that Kennedy’s peace initiative failed. For the legacy of the peace initiative must be seen where Kennan put them squarely: as a test of values.
Kennedy put forward three definitions of peace. Peace, he said, is the necessary rational end of rational men; peace is a process, a way of solving problems; and peace is a human right, a right to live in safety, free from fear. Kennedy claimed that our common humanity could transcend our obvious differences, and that the world could be made safe for diversity. And he urged steadfastness, to take peace a step at a time, and to realize that our work on earth “will not … be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
Time proved to be a great elixir. By staying alive, by avoiding the abyss, the world moved beyond the Cold War and beyond the closed Soviet system. As Kennedy predicted in his Peace Speech and his address to the Irish Dáil, the enmities that nearly destroyed the world in 1962 seem ancient and nearly incomprehensible to us today. The extreme ideologues, fanatics, and messianists of past political faiths, whether communist or anti-communist, were all proved wrong, though vastly too many lives were lost in the process. Those who believed in the common fate of humanity were vindicated, and we owe our survival to them.
* Most notable in the United States has been the leadership of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former U.S. senator Sam Nunn, former secretary of state George Shultz, and former secretary of defense William Perry, in urging a nuclear-free world. They have published a series of highly noted and influential op-ed pieces since 2007 calling for practical steps to reduce the nuclear threat and ultimately achieve a world without nuclear weapons. In their first piece they stated: “Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible. We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal.” George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007.
† These two documents, the first a diplomatic cable in 1946 and the second an anonymously authored piece for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947, were hugely influential in setting the new U.S. policy framework of containment.
Chapter 9.
LET US TAKE OUR STAND
THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON that we learn from John Kennedy is to fashion the future out of our rational hopes, not our fears. He was the first to deny the baseless hopes of idle dreamers:
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.
But he was also for seeing things as they might be, and asking, “Why not?”
What other lessons do we learn from his leadership that we can apply in our own time? We are inspired by Kennedy’s repeated urging that each generation must take up the great challenges of its time. Kennedy relished the causes of his day, especially the defense of liberty: “I do not believe,” he declared, “that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation.” Through all of his speeches, the challenge is always specifically drawn. “Let us take our stand here … in our own time.” When we behold Kennedy’s energy and confidence in problem solving, we are stirred to bring the same daring commitment to problem solving in our own time.
Kennedy inspired others because he demanded the best from them. He did not tell Americans, Russians, or Berliners what to do; he told them, instead, what they could achieve. He created his enduring legacy not by making easy promises but by calling for difficult sacrifices. Fifty years on, we are still moved by his case for going to the moon:
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.1
Kennedy insisted repeatedly that our fates are intertwined, and that our own well-being depends on an indissoluble chain of human well-being. “Freedom is indivisible,” he told the Berliners, “and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.” He called for moral reflection on the basic equality of our fates: “The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” And he bid us to be courageous in accepting moral responsibility:
A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.2
For Kennedy, the common fate of humanity was not only a moral vision of universal rights but a practical key to statecraft and political leadership. Because humanity shares a common fate and common aspirations, it is possible to step into the shoes of one’s adversary and to understand the problem from the adversary’s point of view. Dehumanizing an opponent was not only a moral error but a tactical one, too. As Kennedy said in the Peace Speech, the adversary is a fellow human being, with the same interests, inhabiting the same small planet, breathing the same air, caring for their own children in the same way that we do. And, as he stated, no political or social system is so repugnant that its people should be regarded as lacking in virtue.
Kennedy knew that vision was not enough, and that a general call to peace and well-being would accomplish little. Kennedy spoke “in this time and place” about specific challenges, whether they be peace, race relations, the race to the moon, or other causes. As a politician and statesman, he looked relentlessly for a practical path, a next step toward the goal. He gave us the best single piece of management advice that I know, one that I admire so much that I’ll quote it again:
By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly towards it.
Clear goals are vital for many reasons: they create shared objectives, help to specify the means, and unite the public in action. Defining goals is indeed the most important single job of leadership, since without them there can be nothing but cacophony. Only once a goal has been made clear can the practical work of problem solving begin. And with a clear goal, a leader can galvanize society to bold actions, whether going to the moon or making peace with the Soviet Union. To win the public’s backing for the moon mission, Kennedy quoted William Bradford, a founder of the Plymouth Bay Colony, to the effect that “all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.” Kennedy’s quest for peace was the same: a clear goal, courageously embraced; and practical steps to achieve it, with milestones on nuclear testing, non-proliferation, arms control, and so forth.
Kennedy recognized another obstacle. In opening the Peace Speech, he called peace “the most important topic on earth.” Yet he noted that “the pu
rsuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears.” Here is a dismaying truth: the most important topic on earth may fall on deaf ears! We are hardwired for drama, for competition, for the struggle to survive. Even when we cooperate, we often do it for the benefit of our own group—so our group can be stronger than the others. Kennedy himself took advantage of this inclination: when he called space the ultimate frontier, an adventure for all humanity, he motivated Americans in part by declaring that America would be first in space, thus appealing to our competitive nature.
Global cooperation is more elusive than cooperation within clans, families, tribes, and nations. How do we mobilize attention to and efforts at cooperation on a global scale, when the challenge is not “us” versus “them”? Kennedy made progress in this direction, by emphasizing our common humanity and the mutual benefits of cooperation. We can use his example, his ideas, and his oratory as we struggle to achieve global cooperation in our time.
Our Generation’s Challenge
Each generation is born into a new world, and faces new challenges. Those born at the start of the twentieth century grappled with the Great Depression and two devastating world wars. When the torch was passed to Kennedy’s generation, one that had been “tempered by war and disciplined by a hard and bitter peace,” as he noted in his inaugural, the challenge was to face the Cold War and the new realities of nuclear weapons.
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