Tom's column this week
Saturday, April 14, 2007 at 6:44PM Nixon and Deng: two architects of our globalized world
Pope John Paul II hurtles toward sainthood in the Catholic Church, while Ronald Reagan achieved that ideological status long ago in the hearts of American conservatives. Both are judged by many historians as decisive figures in the West's Cold War victory over the socialist bloc.
While not denigrating the contributions of these two great men, let me submit that two other figures loom far larger as architects of the socialist bloc's transformation from vaunted global menace to valued global market: Richard Nixon and Deng Xiaoping. Yes, I know I'm talking about Watergate's "criminal-in-chief" and the real "butcher of Tiananmen," but neither leader's political sins compare to their absolutely pivotal roles in history.
Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.
Reader Comments (14)
As to Deng, most dictators leave their countries worse off, period. A few have been mixed bags. Deng is one who made a lot of very important decisions correctly. History will probably be kind ot him, and even see Tiananmen as the right decision, no matter how much we may recoil from that.
In turn, De Gaulle deserves cred for shaping and heavily influencing Nixon's thinking in the 1960s. I believe Nixon said De Gaulle told him something like "If you're not ready to have a war, then make peace but from a position of strength rather than weakness". Nixon recognized that China, given its history and size, was bound to become a great power, so he decided the U.S. had to improve relations with China when it was still weak, when it still saw benefits in improved relations with the U.S. And the China-Soviet tensions just provided the context to begin a conversation he wanted to start even outside of the Cold War context. I wish we had more presidents who could look out twenty years and be as perceptive as Nixon was.
A pleasure to read and on target. You missed your calling by going into polisci - you should have been a historian! ;o)
I would maintain our best overtures to the Gap are those that show we're serious about shrinking it/connecting it.
Africom will be a big marker, in this sense. That's my next piece of the puzzle.
"Reagan's confrontational policies and idiotic SDI empowered Soviet hardliners and kept them in influential positions long after most of the Soviet leadership was prepared to move on and abandon communism"
No. If that was the case the politburo would have opted for another octogenarian hardliner after Chernenko died. SDI impacted Soviet arms control bargaining positions, not its leadership selection.
a. If globalization (cooperation/connectivity) is indeed the context and the mission, then the next US President goes to the Gap with big serious carrots (like Nixon to China). Africom, within the context of globalization, seems counterproductive.
b. If, however, concern for the rise of China and finite resources (competition) are the context, then I like Africom (containment of China) a lot. And I expect that connectivity with the Gap will have to, once again, be sacrificed for security -- as in days past.
I have some passing familiarity with Dr. Barnett's ideas, thanks. Moreso, with Soviet-American relations.
You asserted that Reagan's policies energized " the hardliners" which is a question of causal relationships, not normative judgments. The "hardline" position in the Soviet elite in terms waned steadily during Reagan's two terms. 1983 represents the low ebb of US-Soviet relations during the Reagan years and the Soviets were on the defensive globally, even in Eastern Europe, where just four years earlier marked the watershed of their reach.
Setting aside the fact that " the hardliners" said the U.S. could not be trusted under Carter as well ( and Ford, and Nixon and Johnson and...) you seem to be conflating very different groups in the Soviet hierarchy.
The national security hardliners in the politburo during the early 80's (Andropov, Suslov, Ustinov, Gromyko, Ponomarev [cand.]) came to power long before Reagan ran for president as a result of Brezhnev's physical decline. This was an alliance of convenience as they represented different " clans" in the nomenklatura.
Gorbachev, like Shevardnadze, Ligachev and Kryuchkov were all Andropov's proteges. These hardliners were not standing the way of economic reform, few ppl knew better than Andropov about the USSR's dire economic straits. Or the deep, systemic, corruption of Brezhnev's "clan", the "Dnepropetrovsk mafia".
It was the latter group, the republic to oblast party barons and agricultural and military-industry apparatchiks, who had been supporters of Brezhnev's detente policies, who were the most resistant to perestroika and whom Gorbachev fought to remove ( a campaign begun by Andropov, temporarily halted during Chernenko's brief tenure).
In short, the internal political struggle the Soviet leadership was conducting was fought for reasons far more complex than some action-reaction game theory premise. I'm not aware of any former Soviet "hardliner" in either the national security or ideological sense who has written that Reagan's policies gave them a leg up in these struggles. At least not in any kind of reasonable time frame that mattered. Rather Reagan's anti-Soviet policies coupled with a willingness to negotiate seemed to pressure both factions in different ways as the national security types were reeling under the weight of Afghanistan and the party apparatchiks the shrinking Soviet economy.