When Did the Cold War End. by J Mueller

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WHEN DID THE COLD WAR END?

John MuellerDepartment of Political Science

Ohio State UniversityJuly 26, 2002

Prepared for delivery at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the AmericanPolitical Science Association, Boston, MA, August 29-September 1, 2002.

Copyright by the American Political Science Association.

Mershon Center1501 Neil AvenueColumbus, OH 43201-2602614-247-6007614-292-2407 (fax)[email protected]://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/jmueller

ABSTRACT: The demise of the Cold War is commonly associated with the collapseof the Soviet empire in East Europe in late 1989 or with the disintegration of the SovietUnion and of Communism in 1991. However, judging from the rhetoric and actions of important observers and key international actors at the time, the Cold War essentiallyended in the spring of 1989, well before these momentous events took place. Thissuggests that the Cold War was principally (or even entirely) about an ideologicalconflict, and not about the military, nuclear, or economic balance between the East and

the West, Communism as a form of government, the need to move the world towarddemocracy and/or capitalism, or, to a degree, Soviet domination of East Europe. TheCold War was not about these issues because it came to an end before any of themwas really resolved.



y

Mueller: When Did the Cold War End? July 26, 2002 2

the Cold War essentially ended in early 1989, but I do not wish to suggest that the Cold War wasnecessarily permanently closed down or that it could not have been reinstituted after that date. It wascertainly possible for Gorbachev later to change course if he had wanted to. Or, more likely, he couldhave been overthrown and his policy reversed by a group of hardliners. Indeed, in 1991 there was a coupeffort against him by such Communists and, had they been successful, it is possible they would havere-established Cold War hostilities. Actually, the coup conspirators during their fifteen minutes of fameseemed to indicate that, while planning to undo some of Gorbachev's domestic reforms and to adopt atougher line about the potential breakup of the Soviet Union, they did not intend to amend, alter, or reversethe basic changes Gorbachev had made to the Cold War situation.

1But, of course, it is possible they

eventually would have done so. Therefore, the "ending" of the Cold War could have proved to besomething less than a terminal experience.

However, this concern holds for any supposed ending point for the Cold War. Indeed, we are notout of the woods yet. The Communist Party remains strong in Russia, and some of its core supporters arequite hard line. It is conceivable that if those characters managed to get into office in Russia, they mightseek to reinstitute the Cold War, albeit with a somewhat smaller geographic base than the Soviet Unionenjoyed at its imperial peak. This seems pretty unlikely, but, given the tumultuousness of Russian politics,it is surely not impossible. Hence, any proposed ending date for the Cold War is potentially reversible.

Dating the ending of the Cold War

Although later events were to prove more striking and dramatic, there is quite a bit of evidence tosuggest that by the spring of 1989 many key people had already accepted the proposition that the ColdWar was essentially over.

Thatcher, Reagan, and the Reagan administration

Perhaps the earliest procla mation by an important policy maker that the Cold War was over wasmade by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in an interview published on the front page of the

Washington Post on November 18, 1988. "We're not in a Cold War now," she noted, but in a "newrelationship much wider than the Cold War ever was." At the same time, she was entirely sensitive to thepossibility that progress could be reversed, suggesting that the West be prepared to make a reassessmentand return to confrontation should Gorbachev be toppled or become stymied.

2




The reporter's question and Reagan's answer were likely influenced by an important speechSoviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had given at the United Nations the day before. In this he announcedthat he planned unilaterally to reduce Soviet arms and, in addition, he made a very interesting declarationabout ideology and its role:

The new phase also requires de-ideologizing relations among states. We are notabandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone toabandon theirs.

But neither do we have any intention to be hemmed in by our values. That would result in

intellectual impoverishment, for it would mean rejecting a powerful source of development--the exchange of everything original that each nation has independentlycreated.

In the course of such exchange, let everyone show the advantage of their social system,way of life or values--and not just by words or propaganda, but by real deeds.

That would be a fair rivalry of ideologies. But it should not be extended to relationsamong states.

4

In many respects, this international declaration was the culmination of a process had begun shortlyafter Gorbachev had come to office in 1985 in which the Soviet Union came to abandon its once-centraldevotion to impelling ideas about the international class struggle.

5As part of the process, Gorbachev

promised in 1987 to withdraw from Afghanistan where the country was bogged down in a costly war.Reagan administration officials had at first felt this was "too good to be true,"

6but Gorbachev fulfilled the

promise and the pullout was completed by February 15, 1989. This, of course, was a clear indication that,despite the pronouncements of the Brezhnev Doctrine of 1968, the Soviet Union was not only willing tocease expansion but to withdraw at least from areas where it had become overextended even though aCommunist government would likely be replaced by a non-Communist one. There were also suggestions

in Gorbachev's UN speech that the Soviet Union would not use force to maintain its control over thecountries of East Europe.

7

4




Reagan was not the only member of his administration to be impressed by such words and deeds.His Secretary of State, George Shultz, entitles the final chapter of his memoirs, "Turning Point." In it, he

concludes that "Margaret Thatcher had it right...it was all over but the shouting," and notes that the "coldwar was over" when he stepped down in January 1989 and that his main apprehension was that the newBush team might not understand or accept this fact.

8

The New York Times

Impressed by the developments, the New York Times published a series of op-ed pieces underthe theme, "Is the Cold War Over?" during the first months of 1989. Then, on Sunday, April 2, 1989, it ran

a long editorial summarizing the discussion under the title, "The Cold War Is Over."The editorial actually tended to extrapolate beyond what most of its comparatively tentative

commentators had indicated, and it was perhaps intended to be rather provocative. But it was apronounced declaration by a source with a reputation for sober judgement.

The Washington Post and the views of major foreign policy figures

A month later, in early May, the Washington Post ran a two-part series on its front page pointedlyentitled, "Beyond the Cold War." One of these articles documented various public and political pressures

to reduce defense spending.

9

In the other, Don Oberdorfer surveyed various foreign policy figures outsideof government and found that "nearly all of them said that the vast changes under way in the world arebringing an end to the post-World War II era."

10

Thus, former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara noted that "for 40 years U.S. foreignpolicy and defense programs have been shaped largely by one major force: fear of and opposition to thespread of Soviet-backed communism," but now, he argued, new organizing principles for governinginternational life must be found: Indeed, "We face an opportunity--the greatest in 40 years--to bring an endto the Cold War." To former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, "We are entering a new era" in which "we

will find ourselves very often on the same side with the Soviet Union," and William Hyland, editor of Foreign Affairs, indicated the "What began in 1943-45 is ending, and something else is taking its place."Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger found that "International factors have rarely been so fluid.The one thing that cannot occur is a continuation of the status quo."




generating in themselves. The conflicts will continue, but they will be reduced to their own indigenousdimensions." Brzezinski recalled that Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech of 1946 had"closed the gap between public consciousness and a reality that already existed" and, in the process, hadessentially announced the Cold War. A similar gap-closing declaration, Brzezinski argued, was nowneeded to inaugurate the new era.

Public opinion

Actually, the public does not seem to have needed the reminder. It already seems to have beenaware that a new era was dawning (or had dawned).

Figure 1 display the results from a pair of questions that crudely, but clearly, pose the central ColdWar question: Was the Soviet Union, after all, actually out to take over the world or was it mainly justinterested in its own security?

11In the early years of the Cold War, and reaching a high at the time of the

Communist Chinese entry into the Korean War at the end of 1950, the public strongly opted for the formerinterpretation of Soviet behavior. Once Gorbachev had established himself, however, the public reverseditself. Although the amazing changes of 1989 certainly enhanced the benign interpretation of Sovietbehavior, it is impressive how high it already was at the end of 1988.

Figure 2 supplies some data concerning the degree to which the public found the Soviet Union to

be a threat. By the time of Gorbachev's United Nations speech in December 1988, over half of the publicwas already willing to find that country to be only a minor threat (44%) or no threat at all (10%), and bymid-June 1989, still well before the dramatic fall of the Berlin wall, these numbers had increased to 45%and 14%, respectively. For comparison, the figure also includes data from a somewhat similar questionconcerning the alarming new "threat" to national security perceived at the time to be presented byeconomically impressive, if demilitarized, Japan. By the spring of 1989, the Japanese "threat" was seen tobe nearly comparable to the one posed by the Soviet Union.

Finally, Figure 3 reports the results of a poll asking whether Gorbachev seemed different from

previous Soviet leaders. From a tentative 47 percent at the end of 1985, this grew to an overwhelming 79percent by the spring of 1989. Also notable is the considerable decline of the percentage expressing "noopinion" on the issue.

Th W ll St t J l




have been groping for the gap-closing phraseology that Brzezinski, the press, and the public were callingfor, and Condoleezza Rice, a member of the National Security Council staff, came up with the phrase,"beyond containment," something, as Oberdorfer notes, that was "almost the reverse of containment" in its"encouragement of Soviet integration into the Western economic and political community."

13Working with

Robert Blackwill, she produced a secret seven-page National Security Directive, NSD-23, which includedthe key phrase:

containment was never an end in itself. It was a strategy born of the condition of the postwarworld. [But] a new era may now be upon us. We may be able to move beyondcontainment to a new U.S. policy that actively promotes the integration of the SovietUnion into the international system.14

National Security adviser Brent Scowcroft, was taken with the phrase and with the policy change.There was even talk of labeling it the "Bush Doctrine," but Scowcroft rejected this idea on the grounds

that the press, not presidents themselves, are supposed to confer such labels.15

There was alsoconsideration of declaring the Cold War over, but Scowcroft vetoed that phraseology not because henecessarily thought it invalid, but because of concerns about reversibility: "That's the kind of line that onceyou've said it, it can never be unsaid."

16The "beyond containment" idea was presented to Bush and he

quickly embraced it.

The phrase was first used in a major address at Texas A&M University on May 12, 1989. Bushbegan this important speech by placing the policy of containment quite clearly in the past tense:

Wise men--Truman and Eisenhower, Vandenberg and Rayburn, Marshall, Acheson, andKennan--crafted the strategy of containment. They believed that the Soviet Union, deniedthe easy course of expansion, would turn inward and address the contradictions of itsinefficient, repressive, and inhumane system. And they were right--the Soviet Union isnow publicly facing this hard reality. Containment worked.

Now, Bush went on to suggest, it was time to move on to a new policy:

We are approaching the conclusion of an historic postwar struggle between two visions: one of tyranny and conflict and one of democracy and freedom. The review of U.S.-Soviet

l ti th t d i i t ti h j t l t d tli th t d l i




they meet the challenge of responsible international behavior, we will match their stepswith steps of our own. Ultimately, our objective is to welcome the Soviet Union back intothe world order.

At the end of the speech, he noted that a Texas A&M graduate had been the first American soldier toshake hands with the Soviets when the forces met at the Elbe River at the conclusion of World War II.Making use of this rhetorical convenience, Bush made a clear comparison between the end of World WarII and the end of the Cold War:

Once again, we are ready for a hand in return. And once again, it is a time for peace.17

This was not simply a momentary reflection, but a major policy declaration, and Bush went on tohammer it home in speeches over the next weeks. The next day he went out of his way in two separatespeeches to point out that "Yesterday I announced a new policy for the 1990's, one that moves beyond ourcountry just trying to contain the Soviet Union. It sets a goal of bringing the Soviet Union into the worldcommunity, a policy of reintegration."

18And "The postwar period has given way to a new world, a world

still perilous, but alive with prospects for peace and with the certainly of change. Yesterday...I talked of that change, of a new policy of that moves beyond containment of the Soviet Union. And the new policyseeks to bring the Soviet Union into the family of nations, a policy, if you will, of reintegration.

19

On May 24, he repeated the notion at a major speech at the Coast Guard Academy, againapplying the past tense when dealing with containment:

The grand strategy of the West during the postwar period has been based on the concept of containment: checking the Soviet Union's expansionist aims, in the hope that the Sovietsystem itself would one day be forced to confront its internal contradictions. The fermentin the Soviet Union today affirms the wisdom of this strategy. And now we have aprecious opportunity to move beyond containment. You're graduating into an excitingworld where the opportunity for world peace, lasting peace, has never been better. Our

goal, integrating the Soviet Union into the community of nations, is every bit as ambitiousas containment was at its time. And it hold tremendous promise for internationalstability.

20

Si il l B h b t t d t f j NATO it ti M 26 h t d




that knows no season of suspicion....America is ready to seize every--and I do mean every--opportunity tobring the Soviet Union into the family of nations."24

Although these pronouncements did not declare the Cold War to be over in so many words, theystrongly carried this implication in their call not simply to go beyond containment, but effectively to reverseit. Moreover, Bush had become "tired of criticism casting him as stuck in a Cold War rut" and specificallyrejected rhetoric that was "bombastic, hard-line, and full of 'macho' Cold War expressions that did not ringtrue to him." Bush and Scowcroft reflect that they were consciously "shifting policy" in these speeches,and presenting a "new strategy toward the cockpit of East-West confrontation."

25

Bush's important policy shift garnered little notice at the time perhaps because it was tooatmospheric, because Bush was not very good at handling what he called "the vision thing," because theTexas A&M speech was belabored with a distracting, dead-on-arrival policy proposal that was mostly awarmed-over rephrasing of the "Open Skies" idea from the Eisenhower administration,

26because of

Scowcroft's unwillingness to engage in explicit hype, and because "beyond containment" as a phrasesimply doesn't have the same vivid ring or resonance as "iron curtain." At any rate, the hopes of some inthe administration that the press would grasp the importance of the message Bush was trying to deliverand dub it the "Bush Doctrine" were disappointed.

27

What the Cold War was not about If the Cold War essentially came to an end in the spring of 1989, this would suggest that it could

not have been about a number of issues and themes.

Nuclear weapons and the military balance

If the Cold War was about nuclear weapons in any important sense, it would still be going on: theUnited States and Russia continue retain enormous nuclear arsenals. In fact, about the only thing thatdidn't change at the Cold War's end was the size of the nuclear arsenal East and West had pointed, or

potentially pointed, at each other.Nor was the Cold War about the military balance more generally. Later events, particularly those

surrounding Russia's pathetic effort to deal militarily with the secession movement in Chechnya in themid-1990s, have led to the realization that the Soviet "military machine" may well have been much less




leadership of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and one that will persist even, for instance, after Gorbachev'spromised reductions in the Soviet military."28 And even as he was announcing his "beyond containment"policy, George Bush was pointing out that "We must not forget that the Soviet Union has acquiredawesome military capabilities....that is a fact of life for me today as President of the United States."

29

Yet the Times, and, it appears, Bush, concluded that the Cold War was essentially over eventhough the military balance seemed to be as impressive and as potentially dangerous as ever. Thissuggests that the arms balance was more nearly an indicator of international Cold War tensions than thecause of them. Hans J. Morgenthau once proclaimed that "men do not fight because they have arms;"rather "they have arms because they deem it necessary to fight."

30That is, a country buys arms because

its leaders espy a threat or opportunity which, it seems to them, requires them to arm. Thus, during theCold War the United States and the Soviet Union saw each other as threatening and armed themselvesaccordingly. The British and the French, on the other hand, did not find each other militarily threatening,and therefore they did not spent great sums on arms designed to counter each other.

Moreover, if that is so, it follows that when countries no longer deem it necessary to fight they willget rid of their arms. And that is exactly what happened as the Cold War came to an end: somethingresembling a negative arms race evolved as the weapons that had been built up began to seemburdensome and even parodic.

31

28Frank C. Carlucci, "Is the Cold War Over: No Time to Change U.S. Defense Policy," New York Times, January 27,

1989, p. A31.

29Public Papers of the Presidents: Bush, p. 541. See also Vasquez, p. 330; Owen Harries, "Is the Cold War Really

Over?" National Review, November 10, 1989, p. 45.

30Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1948), p. 327. See also James Lee

Ray and Bruce Russett, "The Future as Arbiter of Theoretical Controversies: Predictions, Explanations and the End

of the Cold War," British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 26, No. 4 (October 1996), p. 457.

31Under such circumstances, reductions are likely to be more difficult if they are carried out through explicit mutual

agreement. The arms buildup, of course, was not accomplished through written agreement; instead, there was a sort




Communism in the Soviet Union

Neither in his December 7, 1988 speech nor in his later pronouncements did Gorbachev indicatethat he intended to abandon Communism or Communist Party control in the Soviet Union. Indeed, evenafter the failed coup attempt against him in 1991 by members of the party, he continued to contend that,while some bad elements needed to be removed from the party and while his policy of Glasnost should befurther advanced, he still deeply believed in Communism as a system and felt that it needed to bereformed, not abandoned: he pledged to "work for the renewal of the party."

32

Consequently, if the Cold War essentially ended in the spring of 1989 (or even in late 1991), it

could not have been about the fact that the Soviet Union had happened to adopt Communism as itsdomestic economic and governmental form. As the quintessential Cold Warrior, John Foster Dulles, onceput it, "The basic change we need to look forward to isn't necessarily a change from Communism toanother form of government. The question is whether you can have Communism in one country orwhether it has to be for the world. If the Soviets had national Communism we could do business with theirgovernment."

33In 1962, President John Kennedy made the same point:

The real problem is the Soviet desire to expand their power and influence. If Mr. Khrushchev wouldconcern himself with the real interests of the people of the Soviet Union--that they have a higher

standard of living, to protect his own security--there is no real reason why the United States andthe Soviet Union...should not be able to live in peace. But it is this constant determination...thatthey will not settle for a peaceful world, but must settle for a Communist world...[that] makes thesixties so dangerous.

34

In his proclamations, including the December 7, 1988 speech, Gorbachev essentially indicated thathe only wanted Communism in his country and was not interested in forcibly exporting it: "In the course of such exchange, let everyone show the advantage of their social system, way of life or values--and not justby words or propaganda, but by real deeds. That would be a fair rivalry of ideologies. But it should not be

extended to relations among states."

35

When it became clear Gorbachev meant it, Bush and other Western leaders were quick to move

to accommodate. They certainly hoped for further economic and political liberalization in the SovietUnion. But, that liberalization, however desirable, does not seem to have been an essential condition to




The existence of the Soviet Union

Dating the demise of the Cold War to coincide with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 makes little sense. Not only does that seem far too late following the reasoning above, but theUnited States actually made considerable effort to keep the country from collapsing, fearing the kind of violent chaos that was to erupt in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Most notably, earlier in the year Bush hadgone to Kiev in the Ukraine to give a speech in which he essentially urged the various Soviet Republics towork it out and to remain within the system.

36If there was a Cold War raging at that time, the United

States and the Soviet Union were on the same side.

Soviet control over East Europe The pronouncements noted above about the end of the Cold War all came while the Soviet Union

still controlled East Europe. Although there were signs of liberalization in Hungary and although Polandwas going to hold semi-open elections in June 1989, Soviet control of the area seemed quite firm. Indeed,several of the countries--particularly East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania--were under thedomination of Communist hardliners who greeted Gorbachev's reforms with utter dismay and even opencontempt.

In its April 2, 1989 declaration of the end of the Cold War, the New York Times readily

acknowledged this issue, noting that "Europe remains torn in two" and that "no one seems to have a goodanswer about the division of Europe, always the most dangerous East-West question." It called for"superpower talks to bring about sovereign nations in Eastern Europe and special arrangements for thetwo Germanys."

37Similarly, Thatcher in her 1988 interview anticipated progress toward solving the

problem but warned those still behind the Iron Curtain about being too impatient: "they can get theirincreasing liberty if they handle it well."

38And the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack

Matlock, has expressed the process this way:

I can only say that as one who was involved in the negotiating...directly in Moscow from 1961 on, to 1991,

that there was a change--it was rather gradual, but very perceptible after that speech inDecember--in that it was no longer a zero sum game in terms of Soviet negotiating. We disagreedon a lot of things. But we all agreed the new Europe should be united. We did agree that thepeoples of Europe should make a choice. We may have had different conceptions of what that




however, "it was still debatable whether the cold war was over. When the Berlin Wall started to come

down, everyone had agreed it was over." And: "There was one final dramatic act to play out before thecold war could be definitively closed out. It was the revolution in Eastern Europe. This was where thecold war had begun, and it was fitting that this was where it would end."

40Similarly, Philip Zelikow and

Condoleezza Rice argue that, whatever the implications of the "beyond containment" speeches (which theyhelped write), Bush essentially felt that the Cold War could not be over until Europe was "whole and free,"a phrase he used a few times both before and after the set of "beyond containment" speeches.

41

The situation is confused somewhat by the incredible speed with which Soviet control over EastEurope was terminated. Except for Albania which took a bit longer, the de-Sovietization of East Europe

substantially took place over a few months at the end of 1989, and the peaceful unification of Germanywas accomplished within the next year. But no one really envisioned the astonishing speed with whichthese massive changes came about.

42The editors of the Times almost certainly felt that working out

viable arrangements in Europe would take many years of careful diplomacy with a Soviet Union whichwas now clearly willing to negotiate in good faith on the issue. Even much later this seemed the sensibleapproach to many. For example, on November 12, 1989--even after the Berlin Wall hadcrumbled--George Kennan published an article in the Washington Post noting, accurately, that "Thechanges now sweeping over Central and Eastern Europe are momentous, irreversible, and truly epoch

making." But he then went on to argue that the process of designing a new Europe was very complex andprofound and would "take years, not months. We will be lucky if the task is substantially accomplishedbefore the end of the century."

43As Zelikow and Rice recall, "for weeks after the Berlin Wall fell on the

40Hyland, pp. 175, ix, 190.

41Public Papers of the Presidents: Bush, p. 431. Zelikow and Rice, pp. 24, 31. Zelikow and Rice date the end of the

Cold War with the unification of Germany (p. 3). Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, dates it at August 3, 1990,

when the Soviet Union indicated that it would join the United States in opposition to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait: James

A. Baker, III, with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989-1992 (New York:

Putnam's, 1995), ch. 1.

42A personal note may be of interest in this regard. In 1986 I presented a paper at the International Studies




night of November 9-10, 1989, even those who dared think about unification [of Germany] laid out

timetables in years, not months."44

Essentially, what was expected was that the Soviet Union would retain overall control over EastEurope, but would work over the years in a business-like manner to negotiate relative autonomy forindividual states and to develop an accommodation on the division of Germany, allowing much increasedcontacts and perhaps even a kind of confederation. At the same time it would presumably continue todampen East-West military tensions through arms control agreements in the manner of the path-breakingIntermediate Nuclear Forces treaty of 1987, and it would assist in the rise of Gorbachev-style reformers inplaces like East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and, insofar as it could, Romania and Albania.

The issue, then, is whether settlement in East Europe was crucial to ending the Cold War orwhether it was more nearly the first really important item on the post-Cold War agenda, one that, as ithappens, was resolved with astonishing and unexpected speed. The evidence seems to point more nearlyto the latter interpretation. Well before the tumultuous events took place in East Europe, the key leaders inEast and West had reached a crucial agreement: that, in Matlock's words, "Europe should be united." Therest was detail--historically important detail, but detail nonetheless.

An important element in the institution of the Cold War was doubtless Western reaction to Soviet

control over the areas it happened to occupy in eastern Europe after World War II. But the containmentpolicy, formulated after that accomplished fact, essentially accepted that control and was designed mainlyto stop any expansion. Thus, while Soviet domination of East Europe was not acceptable to the West,Cold War policy essentially acknowledged that reality. The Cold War could logically end even while suchdomination continued, particularly if the former contestants were determined to resolve the issue in anorderly fashion. And it did.

45

Previous endings: Yugoslavia and China

This argument can, I think, be strengthened by looking at two earlier, if partial, endings in the Cold

War.

Shortly after World War II, the version of Communism in Yugoslavia under Josip Tito wasperhaps the most dynamically ideological and confrontational in the world. This condition changed afterth Tit St li lit f 1948 h Tit d hi t i t d f th i t ti l




Similarly, when China abandoned its commitment to worldwide anti-capitalist revolution and

revolutionary war in the 1970s, it was quickly embraced by the capitalist world and soon came intosomething like an alliance with the United States: if the Soviet Union contemplated invading China in the1950s, it would not have had to worry much about the possibility that the United States would come toChina's defense; by the 1980s, it would.

47As early as 1980 there were official discussions between the

China and the United States about the possible transfer of American defense technology to China andabout "limited strategic cooperation on matters of common concern."

48All this even though the

Communist Party remained (and remains) fully in control in China, even though democracy has never beenallowed to flower there, and (although later considerably reformed) even though the domestic economy

remained strongly controlled from the center.The process was summarized in 1985 by Reagan adviser Richard Pipes: "China has turned inward

and ceased being aggressive, and so we are friendly toward China, just as we are toward Yugoslavia. Wemay deplore their Communist regimes, but these countries are not trying to export their systems andtherefore do not represent a threat to our national security."

49

What the Cold War was about

By the spring of 1989 Gorbachev had been able to convince Western leaders, analysts, and,

apparently, the public that the USSR was giving up on Leninist notions about the international classstruggle. It no longer yearned for the demise of capitalism and, certainly, it was no longer interested inusing violence in any form to accomplish that goal.

50Once the West became convinced that this

ideological reversal had taken place, the Cold War came to an end.

As noted, in his last presidential press conference, Reagan was quite clear about what the ColdWar was about: "the expansionary policy that was instituted in the Communist revolution, that their goalmust be a one-world Communist state."

51And in his "beyond containment" speeches of 1989 Bush

expressed a similar understanding. Containment involved denying the Soviet Union "the easy course of

expansion" until it "turned inward" to address its own "contradictions," or containment required "checkingthe Soviet Union's expansionist aims, in the hope that the Soviet system itself would one day be forced toconfront its internal contradictions." This happy consequence, Bush felt, had now come about.

52

The quintessential and seminal declaration of U.S. policy toward international Communism




is an essentially expansionist ideology. In the first paragraphs of the article, Kennan outlines "the

outstanding features of Communist thought." According to Kennan, these include the following notions:

"the capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitably leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class,"

"capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction" which must "result inevitably andinescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working class,"

countries where revolutions have been successful will "rise against the remaining capitalist world,"

capitalism will not "perish without proletarian revolution," and

"a final push" is "needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip over thetottering structure."

53

There has been a considerable debate about the degree to which ideology actually impelled Sovietpolicy.

54However, over the decades prominent Soviet leaders have repeatedly made statements like the

following:

Lenin: "The existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with the imperialist states for a long timeis unthinkable. In the end either one or the other will conquer. And until that end

comes, a series of the most terrible collisions between the Soviet Republic and thebourgeois states is inevitable."

55

Lenin: "As soon as we are strong enough to fight the whole of capitalism, we shall at once take itby the neck."

56

Stalin: "The goal is to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, using it as abase for the overthrow of imperialism in all countries."

57

Stalin: "To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to destroy imperialism."58

Khrushchev: "peaceful coexistence" means "intense economic, political, and ideological strugglebetween the proletariat and the aggressive forces of imperialism in the worldarena."

59




to the peoples fighting to free themselves from imperialist and colonial tyranny."60

Of course, there is some possibility that sentiments like these are simply theological boilerplate.61

However, after they have been recited millions of times in speeches, pronouncements, books, leaflets,brochures, tracts, training manuals, banners, pamphlets, proclamations, announcements, billboards,handbooks, bumper stickers, and T shirts, one might begin to suspect they could just possibly actuallyreflect true thought processes.

At any rate, since these pronouncements are explicitly and lethally threatening, responsible leadersof capitalist countries ought, at least out of simple prudence, to take them seriously. And it seems clear

that Western leaders and analysts like Kennan, Churchill, Dulles, Kennedy, Thatcher, Reagan, and Bushdid so. Moreover, it rather appears that these ideological threats were absolutely crucial to the Cold War.Once Gorbachev was able to convince Western leaders that the Soviet Union no longer subscribed to

such notions, the Cold War came to an end even though other aspects of the international environmentremained substantially unchanged.

62

John Gaddis has observed that "Moscow's commitment to the overthrow of capitalism throughout

60Hudson et al., p. 196.

61This is essentially the position taken in the waning months of the Cold War by Gorbachev adviser, Giorgi

Arbatov, who argued that Gorbachev was in the process of destroying "anti-Soviet stereotypes." He concluded,

"Something very serious is happening: The beginning of the demise of the entire political infrastructure of the Cold

War. The Western press is already saying that Gorbachev's destruction of the stereotype of the 'enemy' is his 'secret

weapon.' The arms race, power politics in the Third World, and military blocs are unthinkable without the 'Soviet

threat'." "Is America No Longer Exceptional?" New Perspectives Quarterly , Summer 1988, p. 31.

62As Irving Kristol argued after Soviet control over East Europe had been substantially undermined, but while

Germany remained divided and while the Soviet Union was intact with the Communist Party still very much in control:

"With the withering away of the Marxist-Leninist impulse that has been the motor force behind the ideologicalimperialism of the Soviets, the cold war has indeed come to an end." "The Map of the World Has Changed," Wall

Street Journal, January 3, 1990, p. A6. Or, as Zelikow and Rice put it, "Gorbachev changed the very foundation of

Soviet foreign policy" (p. 18).




the world" has been "the chief unsettling element in its relations with the West since the Russian

revolution."63 The ending of the Cold War suggests that that commitment comes close to being the only cause of the Cold War. As Jack Matlock puts it, "The cold war could not end, truly and definitively, untilthe Soviet Union abandoned its system's ideological linchpin, the class struggle concept."

64That is, even if

the Soviet Union had retrenched geographically and militarily, it would have continued to be seen as anadversary--although a somewhat less potent one--if it had continued to embrace its threatening ideology.

By the spring of 1989 the necessary and sufficient condition for the ending of the Cold War was inplace. Nothing more was required.




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World dominationProtecting its security

As you hear and read about Russia thesedays, do you believe Russia is tryingto build herself up to be the rulingpower of the world, or do you thinkRussia is just building up protectionagainst being attacked in another war?

Do you believe the Soviet Unionis mainly interested in worlddomination or mainly interestedin protecting its own nationalsecurity?

Figure 1

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Ruling power

Protection

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 19901946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952

1953




How much of a threat would you say the Soviet Union is to the

United States these days: a very serious threat, a serious threat,a minor threat, or not a threat at all?

Do you feel the national security of the United States isthreatened because Japan has become so strong economically? If“Yes”: Is the threat to U.S. national security a very seriousthreat, a serious threat or only a minor threat?

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100SU is serious or very serious threatSU is minor threat or none at all

Japan is serious or very serious threatJapan is minor threat or no threat

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Figure 2




What do you think about Mikhail Gorbachev, the Sovietleader? Do you think of him as different from previousSoviet leaders, or do you think he is just like the others?

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Different

Like the others

No opinion

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Figure 3

Documents

When Did the Cold War End. by J Mueller