Reagan won the Cold War

OPINION:

As we debate whether we’re in a new Cold War, a recent movie and book about President Ronald Reagan’s legacy have inspired Americans to become more familiar with our 40th president. This is especially appropriate given the upcoming presidential election.

From 1981 to 1987, I worked for William Casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and manager of Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign. Casey, who died in 1987, was close to Reagan; both viewed the Soviet Union as an evil empire that had to be defeated. Indeed, this was a time when the Soviet Union was marching to the tune of the Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet interference in Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Yemen, Libya, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua, Grenada and, in 1979, Afghanistan.

Reagan’s instructions to Casey were simple: Defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, halt its meddling abroad, highlight its economic shortcomings and encourage internal liberalization.

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote — “The Long Path to the Current State of Sino-American Relations” — published in 2022 in the Journal of Policy and Strategy,

“National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 32 of March 1982 said the United States would seek to neutralize Soviet control over Eastern Europe and authorized the use of covert action and other means to support anti-Soviet organizations in the region.

“NSDD-75 of January 1983 said the United States should not just coexist with the Soviet Union but change it fundamentally. Casey replaced Turner as DCI with the election of Ronald Reagan. Casey, a veteran of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) from World War 2 and an understudy of “Wild Bill” Donovan, who headed the OSS, was an avid anti-communist and, working with Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Reagan adviser William Clark, and others, took the lead in the implementation of these national security directives, determined to defeat the Soviet Union in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan. NSDD-166 in 1985 spoke of expelling Soviet forces from Afghanistan, where the Kremlin was spending between $4-$5 billion per year.

“With this new directive, efforts to support the Mujahedin increased exponentially and, working primarily with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China. The Soviets were now spending more money in Afghanistan and taking significant casualties, affecting the morale of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and families in the Soviet Union. The approval to provide Stinger missiles to the Mujahedin was the decisive upgrade in weaponry that eventually convinced Moscow that victory was not possible, and withdrawal was its only viable option.

“In November 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made the decision to withdraw all Soviet combat troops by the end of 1988. He said Afghanistan had become ‘a bleeding Wound.’ The Soviets eventually withdrew all soldiers in February 1989, and the last Soviet aircraft left Bagram Airfield on February 3, in line with the Geneva Accords of April 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the Soviet Union and the United States as guarantors.

“President George H.W. Bush replaced Reagan in January 1989 and initially ordered a strategic policy review of relations with the Soviet Union and met with Gorbachev in Malta in December 1989. Discussion dealt with the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) and developments in Eastern Europe, with Bush encouraging Gorbachev to move forward with Democratic reforms.”

In 1985, the Soviet Politburo elected Gorbachev as the Communist Party’s general secretary, replacing Konstantin Chernenko, who replaced Yuri Andropov, who replaced Leonid Brezhnev, who died in 1982 after serving 18 years as general secretary. What Gorbachev inherited in 1985 was a Soviet Union under siege in Afghanistan; confused and perplexed with efforts to address the U.S.’ Strategic Defense initiative (missile defense shield); the Solidarity anti-communist labor movement in Poland and a Polish pope, John Paul II, critical of Moscow’s interference in Poland; and the Samizdat movement in the Soviet Union to make literature — banned by the government — by dissident activists such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn available to the people.

The pressure on Gorbachev was great. He courageously implemented a policy of glasnost — openness — and a policy of perestroika — political reform. He worked with Reagan, who in 1983 said the Soviet Union was an “evil empire” and then, in 1988, after working with Gorbachev, in Moscow’s Red Square, said that the Soviet Union was “no longer an evil empire.” That was the impact Gorbachev had on Reagan.

In the final analysis, it was Reagan’s policies that defeated the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. That’s quite a legacy.

• Joseph R. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and as director of the National Counterproliferation Center. He was CIA Director William Casey’s special assistant from 1981 to 1984. The views expressed here are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.