The Man Who Broke the Evil Empire

PETER SCHWEIZER

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War came with such speed

and surprise that the pace of events was almost too much to comprehend. It began in

1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev acceded to power as Soviet general secretary. To the

utter astonishment of the West, he became "the most revolutionary figure in world poli-

tics in at least four decades," as one historian put it. Gorbachev not only launched glas-

nost, which ended many of the Soviet Union's most repressive practices, but started per-

estroika, or the restructuring of the Soviet Union, in order to end decades of economic

stagnation and backwardness under communism. Gorbachev sought to remake the Soviet

economy by introducing such elements of capitalism as the profit motive and private own-

ership of property. Gorbachev's policies set the Soviet Union down the road toward a

market economy; severely weakened the Soviet Communist party, which lost it monop-

oly of political power in 1990; brought about detente with the West and the pioneering

Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with the United--States, which led the two

countries to jettison their intermediate-range missiles.

In 1989, 'meanwhile, world communism itself appeared to collapse. Our television sets

brought us the stunning spectacle of Eastern Europeans, subjected to decades of violent re-

pression, demonstrating in the street in favor of individual freedom and democratic govern-

ment. Every nation in the Eastern bloc— East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary,

Czechoslovakia, and Poland — overthrew its Communist regime or made that regime re-

form itself into a non-Communist government. Most dramatic of all was the dismantling of

the Berlin Wall, long the preeminent symbol of Cold War between East and West, and

the reunification of Germany itself. At long last, the troubled legacy of the Second World

War appeared to be over, leaving our planet a safer place. For those of us who lived through

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World War II and the entire length of the Cold War, the events of the late 1980s and

early 1990s defied belief. Few thought we would, ever live to see the downfall of the Soviet

Communist state and the end of the Cold War at the same time.

But, as Peter Schweizer says, "a great geopolitical riddle remains." Did United

States policy makers have anything to do with all this? Some analysts think not, con-

tending that the Soviet Union fell apart because of "internal contradictions or pressures."

But other analysts give a great deal of credit to Reagan himself. This former governor of

California, one-time movie actor, and New Deal Democrat turned conservative Repub-

lican was an eloquent and dedicated foe of communism and made international headlines

when he call the Soviet Union "the Evil Empire." Pro-Reagan critics argue that during

his eight years as president (1981—1989), he made the Soviets spend so much on de-

fense that their "Evil Empire" collapsed. He did this, as Professor Garry Wills has

pointed out, by spending so much on America's military that the national debt more

than doubled, to $2.3 trillion, the deficit almost tripled, and the trade deficit more than

quadrupled. In addition to beefing up conventional weapons, Reagan embarked on the

futuristic and inordinately expensive Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed Star

Wars after George Lucas's phenomenally successful science-fiction movie. The Reagan

people claimed that SDI, "through the use of lasers and satellites, would provide an im-

penetrable shield against incoming missiles and thus make nuclear war obsolete." The

SDI program provoked something close to hysteria among Soviet leaders because the

U.S.S.R. lacked the financial resources and the technical expertise to keep up with

the United States in an escalation of the arms race into space. Perhaps this was a major

reason why Gorbachev sought detente with the West, agreed to the Intermediate Nuclear

Forces Treaty, and set about restructuring the Soviet system.

In the following selection, Peter Schweizer, the author of Victory (1994), argues

that the Reagan administration did indeed trigger the fall of the U.S.S.R. Schweizer

quotes a former Soviet official who freely admits that "programs such as the Strategic

Defense Initiative accelerated the decline of the Soviet Union." In point of fact, says

Schweizer, new evidence shows that as early as 1982 Reagan and a few close advisers

began devising "a strategic offensive designed to attack the fundamental weaknesses of

the Soviet system" and that it was remarkably successful. Reagan's huge defense build-

up was part of the plan, for it capitalized on Soviet shortcomings in high technology.

The Reagan administration also set out to roll back Soviet power in Eastern Europe by

encouraging underground efforts to overthrow Communist rule there and by imposing

economic sanctions on the U.S.S.R. itself. In these and other ways, Sduveizer believes,

the Reagan administration contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, "the world's last

great empire." Best-selling novelist Tom Clancy agrees. He dedicated his novel, Exec-

utive Orders (1996), "To Ronald Wilson Reagan, fortieth president of the United

States: The man who won the war."

415

As you read Schweizer's essay, ask yourself if you buy his argument—if you think

it is supported by persuasive evidence. If you disagree with Schweizer, who or what do

you think brought down the Soviet Union and terminated the Cold War?

GLOSSARY

BESSMERTNYKH, ALEKSANDR Sovietforeign minister under Gorbachev; Bessmertnykhbelieves that United States military programs like theStrategic Defense Initiative (SDI) accelerated the fallof the U.S.S.R.

BUSH, GEORGE(1981-1989).

Reagan's vice president

CASEY, BILL Head of the Central IntelligenceAgency under Reagan; Casey was involved in manycovert operations against the Soviet Union, such asfunneling funds to Solidarity in Poland and stirringup resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan.

CLARK, WILLIAM (BILL)the interior (1983-1985).

Reagan's secretary of

DEFICIT The discrepancy between tax revenueand spending.

KING FAHD Saudi Arabia's ruler in the 1980sand 1990s who, thanks to Reagan's initiatives,became closely allied with the United States.

HAIG, ALEXANDER United States Armygeneral and Reagan's first secretary of state(1981-1982).

MEESE, EDWARD Attorney general duringReagan's second term (1985-1989).

MUJAHEDIN In 1979, the Soviet Union invadedAfghanistan and established a pro-Soviet regimethere with 100,000 Soviet troops supporting it. Themujahedin were Afghan resistance fighters who in1985, with the help of the CIA, struck back at theSoviets and their puppet regime, finally forcing theSoviet government to withdraw its forces.

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC)This comprised key members of an Americanpresident's staff and cabinet and the military jointchiefs of staff; the council usually met to discussoptions in foreign policy.

NSDD-75 National Security Decision DirectiveNo. 75. Issued by Reagan in 1983; it initiated apolicy of rolling back, instead of containing, Sovietpower in Eastern Europe.

OPEC Organization of Petroleum ExportingCountries; founded in 1960, it controlled theproduction and therefore the price of crude oil onthe world market.

PIPES, RICHARD Harvard professor who servedas a Reagan advisor and wrote early drafts ofNSDD-75.

PSYOP Acronym for psychological operations,such as radio broadcasts to and the distribution ofsubversive literature in Soviet-controlled territory, inan effort to encourage pro-American revolutionthere.

SHAH OF IRAN Dynastic ruler of Iran whosefull name was Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlev andwho came to power in 1941 when his fatherabdicated in favor of him. The United Statessupported the shah's regime, but its increasinglyrepressive ways provoked such popular oppositionthat in 1979 the shah had to flee the country. Theexiled Ayatolah Khomeini then returned to Iran andset up an Islamic republic.

SOLIDARITY Popular protest movement inPoland against Soviet domination and oppression.

STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE (SDI,ALSO KNOWN AS STAR WARS) Reagan'sprogram of lasers and satellites in space that, in

theor)

us-cConn1980sDeseiIraqi

WEI1defen

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30 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE EVIL EMPIRE

theory, would provide the United States with aprotective shield against nuclear missiles and "thusmake nuclear war obsolete."

US-CENTCOM United States CentralCommand, established in Saudi Arabia in the early1980s. In 1991, US-CENTCOM set up OperationDesert Shield, which protected Saudi Arabia from anIraqi invasion.

WEINBERGER, CASPARdefense (1981-1989).

Reagan's secretary of

N ine years have now passed since the BerlinWall was breached, the first material signof the Soviet empire's decline and fall. Asthe annals of current history continue to be written,a great geopolitical riddle remains: Did the ReaganAdministration somehow trigger the collapse of theEvil Empire?

Shortly after the demise of the Soviet Union,Strobe Talbott, on the talk show Inside Washington,said: "The difference from the Kremlin standpoint . . .between a conservative Republican Administrationand a liberal Democratic Administration was not thatgreat. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Cold Warended almost overwhelmingly because of internalcontradictions or pressures . .. And even if JimmyCarter had been reelected and been followed byWalter Mondale, something like what we have nowseen probably would have happened."

But a number of former Soviet officials don't seeit that way. "American policy in the 1980s was a cat-alyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union," is theblunt assessment of former KGB General Oleg Kalu-gin. He adds, "Reagan and his views disturbed theSoviet government so much they bordered on hyste-ria. There were cables about an imminent crisis. Hewas seen as a very serious threat."

Yevgeny Novikov, who served on the senior staffof the Communist Party Central Committee, recalls,"There was a widespread concern and actual fear ofReagan on the Central Committee. He was the lastthing they wanted to see in Washington."

Former Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykhhas said publicly that programs such as the StrategicDefense Initiative accelerated the decline of the So-viet Union.

Now there is new evidence that the Reagan Ad-ministration was far more active than had previously

From Victory by Peter Schweizer. Copyright © 1994 by PeterSchweizer. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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THE END OF THE COLD WAR

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President Reagan addressing the nation from the Oval Office in

March 1983. He announced a profound shift in America's defen-

sive strategy: the United States, he said, would develop a protec-

tive shield in space, consisting of lasers and satellites designed to

interdict Soviet missiles and "make nuclear war obsolete." (UPI/

Corbis-Bettmann)-

been believed. A paper trail of top-secret presiden-tial directives indicates that in early 1982, PresidentReagan and a few key advisors began mapping out astrategic offensive designed to attack the fundamentalweaknesses of the Soviet system.

Two canons of Reagan thinking drove the strat-egy. The first was the President's well-known anti-Communism, expressed in moral terms of good andevil. He did not believe that Communist regimeswere "just another form of government," as GeorgeKennan had once put it, but a monstrous aberration.When the words "evil empire" rolled from his lips,

Reagan meant it. But the other important ingredientin his thinking (often overlooked) was his belief inthe profound weakness of the Soviet Union. Someof his public pronouncements seem rather propheticin retrospect. "The years ahead will be great ones forour country, for the cause of freedom and the spreadof civilization," he told students at Notre Dame inMay 1981. "The West will not contain Commu-nism, it will transcend Communism. We will notbother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad,bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages areeven now being written." In June 1982 he told the

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British Parliament: "In an ironic sense, Karl Marx•was right. We are witnessing today a great revolu-tionary crisis — a crisis where the demands of theeconomic order are colliding directly with those ofthe political order. But the crisis is happening not inthe free, non-Marxist West, but in the home ofMarxism—Leninism, the Soviet Union." He said thatMarxism-Leninism would be left on the "ash heapof history," and predicted that Eastern Europe andthe Soviet Union itself would experience "repeatedexplosions against repression."

Reagan's view was not even within shouting dis-tance of conventional wisdom. Distinguished Sovi-etologist Seweryn Bialer of Columbia Universityopined in Foreign Affairs (1982): "The Soviet Union isnot now nor will it be during the next decade in thethroes of a true systemic crisis, for it boasts enormousunused reserves of political and social stability . . ."

Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson declared in histextbook Economics (1981): "It is a vulgar mistaketo think that most people in Eastern Europe aremiserable."

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. declared after a1982 visit to Moscow: "Those in the U.S. whothink the Soviet Union is .on the verge of collapse"are "only kidding themselves." "Wishful thinkers,"he wrote, "always see other societies as more fragilethan they are. Each superpower has economic trou-bles; neither is on the ropes."

In 1981 Strobe Talbott wrote: "Though somesecond-echelon hardliners in the Reagan Adminis-tration . . . espouse the early Fifties goal of rollingback Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the U.S.simply does not have the military or political powerto do that."

The. direction of Reagan's Soviet strategy is mostevident in National Security Decision Directive 75,signed by the President in early 1983. (An NSDD isa written order from the President directing his se-nior advisors on major foreign-policy matters.) Thedocument was a break with the policy of contain-ment, •which had guided every previous postwar Ad-

ministration. NSDD-75 declared instead a policy ofrolling back Soviet power.

NSDD-75 changed the terms of the superpowerrelationship. According to Professor Richard Pipes ofHarvard, who drafted early versions of the documentwhile at the National Security Council (NSC): "Itwas the first document which said what mattered wasnot only Soviet behavior but the nature of the Sovietsystem. NSDD-75 said our goal was no longer to co-exist with the Soviet Union but to change the Sovietsystem. At its root was the belief that we had it in ourpower to alter the Soviet system."

THE BIRTH OF ROLLBACK

The Reagan strategy of attacking Soviet vulnerabili-ties first emerged in early 1982, shortly after thehammer of martial law descended on Poland. Pipesrecalls: "The President was absolutely livid. He said,'Something must be done. We need to hit themhard.' "

In January 1982, he spoke with his closest advi-sors, in a meeting where much of the National Secu-rity Council was not included. "NSC meetings werenot considered leak-proof; he didn't want to riskanything," recalls Pipes. Also present were GeorgeBush, Alexander Haig, Caspar Weinberger, BillClark, Ed Meese, and Bill Casey. There was a gen-eral consensus that the U.S. had to send a strongmessage to Warsaw and Moscow. Economic sanc-tions were universally supported. But then someoneraised the stakes: What about covertly funding Soli-darity to ensure that the only above-ground anti-Communist .organization in the Soviet bloc wouldsurvive the cold winter of martial law?

The specter of a risky covert operation hauntedthe room. After a few moments, Haig cut throughthe silence, calling the notion "crazy." Bush agreed,arguing that if the operation were discovered, itwould only inflame Moscow. Pipes, Weinberger,

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THE END ..OF THE COLD WAR

Casey, and Clark, however, voiced enthusiastic sup-port for such an operation. But the President "didn'tneed any encouragement," according to Pipes. Heimmediately ordered Bill Casey to draw up a plan.Over the next several months Casey arranged for theCIA to provide advanced communication equip-ment and material assistance to the tune of approxi-mately $8 million per year.

Next, the President asked Clark, his new NationalSecurity Advisor, to draw up a document redefiningAmerican goals in Eastern Europe. The directivethat emerged was radical: the stated goal of U.S.policy would be to "neutralize efforts of the USSR"to maintain its hold on Eastern Europe. Reagansigned the directive in the spring of 1982. "InNSDD-32," recaUs Bill Clark, "Ronald Reaganmade clear that the United States was not resigned tothe status quo of Soviet domination of Eastern Eu-rope. We attempted to forge a multi-pronged strat-egy to weaken Soviet influence and strengthen in-digenous forces for freedom in the region. Polandoffered a unique opportunity relative to other stateslike Bulgaria, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia. This isnot to say that we did not pursue activities — bothovert and covert — in these other countries toloosen Moscow's grip." The activities includedcovert support for underground movements at-tempting to throw off Communist rule, and intensi-fying psychological operations (PSYOP), particularlybroadcasts by Voice of America and Radio FreeEurope.

In tandem with the geopolitical counterofFensivein Eastern Europe, the Administration fired the firstvolleys of what would become a secret economicwar against the Kremlin. Using Poland as a justifica-tion, the Administration in 1982 imposed sanctionson Moscow, intended to cut off most of the tech-nologies needed for a massive new natural-gaspipeline from Siberia, and for an energy program onthe Sakhalin Islands being co-developed with Japan.The sanctions went to the heart of Soviet income:energy exports, which accounted for 80 percent of

Soviet hard-currency earnings. U.S. sanctions, whichWestern Europe resisted, did not stop constructionof the pipeline, but delayed it two years, and cutit back in size. The Kremlin was out $15 to $20billion.

Meanwhile, the Administration realized that if in-ternational oil prices could be brought down, the

U.S. economy, the world's largest importer of crude,would be the beneficiary, while the Kremlin, as alarge exporter, could only be hurt.

The easiest means of bringing down prices was byraising world production, and the key to that wasSaudi Arabia, the "swing producer" for the OPECcartel. The Saudis had historically changed their pro-duction rates to ensure stable and high oil prices;they could just as easily change them to cause pricesto drop.

THE SAUDI OPERATION

To make the Saudis hospitable to Western interests,the Reagan Administration provided unprecedentedsecurity commitments to the Saudi royal family.There were of course arms sales . (the AWACS dealin 1981 and the 1984 sale of Stinger missiles) inwhich the President used extraordinary powers tosidestep Congress. But the U.S. commitment wenteven deeper. Bill Casey's CIA helped modernizeSaudi internal security to help protect the regimefrom its domestic opponents. And the U.S. flexedits military muscle by establishing in 1983 a U.S.Central Command (US-CENTCOM) for the Per-sian Gulf region, boasting an ability to mobilize300,000 U.S. troops. In 1985 the U.S. began con-struction on "Peace Shield," a high-tech systemmanned by U.S. personnel to coordinate the defenseof Saudi Arabia in case of attack. In addition, Presi-dent Reagan himself expressed publicly (in 1981)and privately to King Fahd (in early 1985) his guar-antee that so long as he was Commander-in-Chief,

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the royal family would not meet the same fate as theShah of Iran.

Saudi Arabia, surrounded by multiple threats —South Yemen, Syria, the raging Iran-Iraq war — 'wasclearly pleased, and the Administration hoped thatthis would lead to a change in Saudi oil^pricing poli-cies. However, senior Administration officials insistthat there was never any quid pro quo presented to theSaudis.

In the late summer of 1985, senior Saudi officialsalerted the Administration that prices would soondrop. The Saudi decision to alert Washington to itsproduction plans stands in stark contrast with theswings in Saudi policy that took America by surpriseduring the 1970s.

As production rose, prices plunged from $30 abarrel in November 1985 to $12 a barrel five monthslater. And it cost the Kremlin dearly. "The drop inoil prices was devastating, just devastating," saysYevgeny Novikov. "Tens of billions were wipedaway." A secret May 1986 CIA report noted that forevery dollar-per-barrel drop in the price of oil, theKremlin would lose a half-billion to a billion dollarsper year. The report concluded that the price drop"will substantially reduce the Soviets' ability to im-port Western equipment, agricultural goods, and in-dustrial materials . . . [This] . . . comes at a time whenGorbachev probably is counting on increased inputsfrom the West to assist his program of economic re-vitalization."

Dozens of large projects were brought to an endfor lack of funds. By July 1986 it took almost fivetimes as much Soviet oil to purchase a given piece ofWest German machinery as it had taken a year ear-lier. Arms exports (the number-two Soviet exportbehind energy) also plunged, because most saleswere to Middle Eastern countries no longer flushwith petrodollars.

As the Soviets faced this catastrophic drop in theirincome, they also faced the prospect of spendingmore of their dwindling resources on an arms race.U.S. defense procurement budgets rose by 25 per-

cent in each of the early Reagan years. By the mid1980s, U.S. military expenditures were exceedingthose of the Soviet Union for the first time since thelate 1960s.

More than anything else, the defense build-up —from SDI to conventional weapons — was predicatedon high technology, a profound Soviet weakness.Computers and other advanced technologies werethreatening to make old weapon systems obsolete —much as the tank had done to horse cavalry. As Mar-shal Nikolai Ogarkov put it: "The rapid developmentof science and technology in recent years creates realpreconditions for the emergence . . . of even more de-structive and previously unknown types of weaponsbased on new physical principles. Work on these newtypes of weapons is already in progress . . . most im-portantly the United States. Their development is areality of the very near future, and it would be a seri-ous mistake not to take account of this right now."

Gorbachev himself shared this view, noting: "Thecompetition that has grown more acute under theimpact of scientific and technological progress is af-fecting those who have dropped behind ever moremercilessly."

IT Is No ACCIDENT . . .

Documents reveal that the effect of the Reagandefense build-up on the Soviet economy was quitedeliberate. A top-secret five-year planning directivefor the Department of Defense, signed by CasparWeinberger in early 1982, mentions the build-upcould serve as a form of "economic and technical•war" against Moscow. The Pentagon would push for"investment in weapon systems that render the accu-mulative Soviet equipment obsolete." SDI was partof this strategy. Yes, the President wanted a strategicdefense system. But according to one NSDD from1983, a measure of success for the program was theeconomic costs it would impose on Moscow.

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And it worked. By 1984, General Secretary Kon-stantin Chernenko declared that "the complex inter-national situation has forced us to divert a great dealof resources to strengthening the security of ourcountry."

In 1985 General Secretary Gorbachev pushed foran 8 percent per year jump in defense spending."The U.S. wants to exhaust the Soviet Union eco-nomically through a race in the most up-to-date andexpensive weapons," he ominously warned.

By 1985, with a covert line of support running toPoland, a massive U.S. defense build-up, and theKremlin facing a myriad of economic problems, theReagan Administration dramatically expanded itscommitment to rolling back Soviet power in Af-ghanistan. The program to aid the mujahedin beganunder Carter. When he first authorized covert sup-port for the resistance in 1980, a top-secret findingdeclared that the U.S. goal was to "harass" Sovietforces.

By 1985, the Reagan Administration was far moreambitious. The President asked National Security Ad-visor Robert McFarlane to redefine and sharpen U.S.objectives in the region. The result was NSDD-166,signed by the President in March. The directive hadseveral key elements, including a commitment to sup-ply the resistance with more advanced weapons andbetter intelligence pulled from spy satellites. But mostimportantly, the long annex to NSDD-166 made theclear-cut goal in Afghanistan absolute victory. And animportant ingredient in accomplishing that goal was asecret initiative to take the war into the Soviet Unionitself.

Back in 1983, Bill Casey and Bill Clark had sat inthe Oval Office mulling over the situation inAfghanistan. As Clark recalls, "The President and BillCasey were determined that Moscow pay an evergreater price for its brutal campaign in Afghanistan."Bill Casey suggested a bold move: What about widen-ing the war to include military operations on Sovietsoil? The President liked the idea.

Casey, as Director of Central Intelligence, took

the proposal to the Pakistanis in 1984, during one ofhis periodic secret trips to Islamabad. Fred Ikle, theundersecretary of defense at the time, recalls thatCasey "simply told Zia [the Pakistani president] andYaqub Khan [the foreign minister], 'This is some-thing that should be done.'" Zia embraced the pro-posal and told Casey to raise it with General AbdulAkhtar and Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf of Pak-istani intelligence (ISI), who were managing the waralong the Afghan frontier.

In their regular meetings, Casey, Akhtar, andYousaf covered a number of issues related to runninga war. But this time, after dealing with the usualmatters, Casey stood up and went to the wall map.The Soviet Union is vulnerable to ethnic tensions,he told his hosts. Soviet Central Asia is the soft un-derbelly of the Soviet Union. We should smuggleliterature to stir up dissent. Then we should shiparms, to encourage local uprisings.

Casey was the first one to have openly pointedout this vulnerability, Yousaf recalls, "I can vividlyremember that he used the phrase 'soft underbelly.' "

Taking the Administration's suggestion, the ISIbegan a program to subvert and launch strikes intoSoviet Central Asia. In 1985, the resistance beganby spreading subversive literature provided by theCIA. By early 1986, strikes were launched fromAfghanistan's Jozjan and Badakshan provinces. TheCIA outfitted these units with Chinese rocketlaunchers and special explosives, as .well as rubberzodiac boats' to cross the Amu River'by night. Chi-nese 107mm rocket launchers with ranges of almostten miles would be deployed at night along thesouth bank of the Amu River and fire a rain of ex-plosives onto Soviet soil. Teams of specially trainedmujahedin would make their way across the river tohit border posts, lay mines, and knock down powerlines. An airfield north of the Soviet town ofPyandch was repeatedly hit by commandos. Oncethe mujahedin were on Soviet territory, locals wouldoccasionally meet them and join in on operations.Only months after the attacks began, the Soviet

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30 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE EVIL EMPIRE

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The Soviet edifice was brought down by a tem-pest whose causes we will never completely under-stand. But what is beginning to come into focus isthe extent to which the Reagan Administration con-tributed to the decline of the world's last great

empire.Assume for a moment that the Administration's

initiatives had not been taken — that Solidarity wasstrangled in its crib for lack of external support; thatthe mujahedin were given only enough weapons tolose more slowly; that the Kremlin was able to reapbadly needed funds from -world energy markets, andwas relieved of its military burdens.

Events in history are rarely inevitable; they arecreated by human beings. Absent the aggressive poli-cies of the Reagan Administration, a weakened So-viet Union might still be lumbering on the worldstage.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 What was NSDD-75? Why was it a landmarkdirective from an American president? how did italter United States policy toward the Soviet Union?

2 Describe United States intervention in Poland andAfghanistan in the 1980s. How were the situations inthe two countries similar? How were they different?Compare Soviet involvement in Afghanistan withAmerican involvement in Vietnam. Do you think itis accurate to say that Afghanistan was the Soviets'Vietnam.

3 What, in your view, best accounts for the de-cline and fall of the Soviet Union and the end of theCold War? Was it Reagan's "strategic offensive de-signed to attack the fundamental weaknesses of theSoviet system," as discussed in Schweizer's article?Or was it the internal problems and pressures withinthe U.S.S.R. and the bold reforms and initiatives ofSoviet General Secretary Gorbachev discussed in theintroduction?

4 Is the downfall of the Soviet Union and the endof the Cold War an appropriate reason to fasten theUnited States with a crippling deficit and nationaldebt, as Reagan did? Has Reagan's costly victory inthe Cold War created a domestic dilemma in theUnited States? If so, what areas of American life areendangered by the monstrous federal debt?

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