Cold War Triumphalism and the Reagan Factor

Abstract

Three decades after Gorbachev’s 1986 Glasnost campaign, the sudden death of the Soviet Union still continues to keep diplomatic historians busy with its momentous implications. The mutually excluding political realms of the Cold War forged a conservative American historical discourse, which perceived the Soviet Union as an evil empire. Existing biases against Moscow continued after the Soviet collapse and were conjured up in a new scholarly genre that might properly be termed as “the Reagan Victory School”. The adherents of this school suggest that President Reagan’s resolve and unsophisticated yet faithfully pragmatic foreign policy designs – the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI in particular – became the major factor behind the Soviet Union’s demise and America’s “triumph” after the Cold War. Looking at several influential monographs on the subject, this paper seeks to demonstrate the well nuanced yet often mono-causal notions vocalized by American scholars of Cold War triumphalism

Keywords

• Cold War Triumphalism, Reagan Victory School, US-Soviet Confrontation, Demise of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.

References

1. See Edward Said, “Islam and the West”, The Observer, 16 September 2001.
2. Geoffrey Hosking, Russia and the Russians: A History, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2003, p. xi.
3. Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.
4. Peter Holquist, “The Soviet Experience in Post-Soviet Historiography”, Paper presented at the Stanford University Conference on ‘Russia at the End of the Twentieth Century,’ California, U.S.A., 5-7 November 1998.
5. John L. Gaddis, “The Unexpected Ronald Reagan”, The United States and the End of the Cold War, New York, Oxford University Press, 1992.
6. Marshall Poe, The Russian Movement in World History, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003, p.76.
7. Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Who Won the Cold War?”, Foreign Policy, No. 87 (Summer 1992), p. 123.
8. Jay Winik, On The Brink: The Dramatic Behind the Scenes Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1996. 9 Ibid, p. 595. 10 Ibid, p. 596.

9. Beth A. Fischer, The Reagan Reversal: Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War, Missouri, University of Missouri Press, 1997. 12 Ibid., p. xi. 13 Ibid., p. x.
10. Ibid., p. 16. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 102. 17 Ibid., p. 103.
11. Jack F. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, New York, Random House, 2004. 19 Ibid., p. 112. 20 Ibid., p. 312.
12. John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History, New York, Penguin, 2006. 22 Ibid., p. xi.
13. Richard Pipes, “Back in the USSR”, Commentary, Vol. 121, No. 2 (February 2006), pp. 66-67.
14. Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2000. 25 Ibid., p.498. 26 Ibid., p. 22. 27 Ibid., p. 25. 28 Ibid., p. 370.
15. Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War, Washington DC, The Brookings Institute, 1994.
16. Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, Washington D.C., The Brookings Institute,1985, p. 2.
17. Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1953, p. 3.
18. William Pemberton, Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 1997, p. xi.
19. James T. Patterson, Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush versus Gore, New York, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 130.
20. Ibid., p. xi. 35 Pemberton, 36 Ibid., p. 5.
21. Lou Canon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991, p.15.
22. Ibid., p.837. 39 Pemberton
23. Ibid., pp. 106-109.
24. Ibid., p. 105. 42 Ibid.
25. Ibid., pp. 150-155. 44 Ibid., p. 149. 45 Ibid., p. 211.
26. David M. Abshire, Saving the Reagan Presidency: Trust is the Coin of the Realm, College Station, Texas A&M University Press, 2005, p. 14.
27. Ibid., p. 5. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p. 15.
28. Robert McFarlane was the National Security Advisor to President Reagan during the scandal, who later became one of the major scapegoats along with John Poindexter. Ibid, p. 20. 51 Ibid, p. 23.
29. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Genera- tion, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.
30. J. Robert Wegs, “Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the 1970s, 1980s, and Beyond”, Europe Since 1945: A Concise History, Bedford, St. Martin’s, 1996, p. 208.
31. Ota Sik, “The Economic Impact of Stalinism,” in Lyman Legters (ed.), Eastern Europe: Transformation and Revolution, Washington D.C., Heath, 1992, p. 188. 55 Ibid, p. 201.