Reagan's War: the Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism

Infantry Magazine, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Glen F. Welch

Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism. Peter Schweizer. New York: Doubleday, 2002. 339 pages. $26.00 (hardcover).

Throughout history, the rare individual has appeared on the historical scene and redirected the flow of events. This book is about one of those individuals. As Peter Schweizer describes in considerable detail, Ronald Reagan bucked the international consensus and trends among intellectuals and national leaders--nearly all of whom knew that the Soviet Union was unstoppably on the rise. To their doubts he said, "Yes, we can defeat communism."

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the best-selling author of numerous books such as The Fall of the Wall." Reassessing the Cause and Consequences of the End of the Cold War (2001) and The Soviet Concepts of Peace, Peaceful Coexistence, and DEtente (1988). With Reagan's War, he has again prepared a masterful analysis of the events of the Cold War. His most recent work chronicles the activities of Ronald Reagan--probably the best blown cold warrior in the flee world. Throughout his book, Schweizer makes all of the appropriate connections with Soviet successes and American retreats from the 1950's through the 1970's. During the same time, he points out, Ronald Reagan was developing his strategy for combating Soviet tactics. Disputing the argument that communism was bound to tail and Reagan only happened to be on hand when it happened, Schweizer gives full credit to Ronald Reagan for the defeat of communism.

Ronald Reagan's emergence in the Cold War began with his opposition (and leadership) to the 1946 strike in Hollywood of the Conference of Studio Unions--a thinly disguised attempt by the Communist Party to take over the movie industry in order to use it to influence America. Despite numerous threats to himself and his family (he actually sat up nights holding a revolver), he never wavered and the strike ultimately failed. Progressing through both state and national politics, Ronald Reagan always supported those who he believed would best resist the onslaught of communism. Usually these same people either disappointed Reagan or failed to get elected. Finally, Reagan's turn came and he employed the strategy he had argued for over the course of many decades.

The strategy included confrontation through the employment of insurgents--formerly a communist monopoly. Reagan's arming of insurgents actually resulted in freeing two communist conquests--Nicaragua and Afghanistan. These reversals, along with the American invasion of Grenada, caused major concerns among the USSR's client states, including Cuba which demanded massive supplies of weapons. To settle Cuban nerves, Moscow delivered an additional seven billion dollars worth of weapons to them. This was an expense the Soviets could ill afford.

Reagan, of course, understood this weakness of the communist system and continued to take advantage of the Soviets' Achilles heel--their economy. His financing of insurgents cost the United States less than a billion dollars each year while the Soviet Union paid eight billion dollars to finance counter insurgency operations. Reagan also delayed construction of a pipeline which would have sold over seven billion dollars worth of Soviet Union natural gas to Europe. His other measures, driving down the cost of oil (the Soviet Union's largest export), swelling the size of the United States military, and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), cost the USSR dearly. The American military buildup and SDI induced the communists to attempt to compete with increased military expenditures. Against approximately 32 billion dollars in exports, Reagan's initiatives were estimated to cost the Soviet Union between 36 and 46 billion dollars each year. The Soviet Union was operating a deficit and international financing was also being cut off: One quote of Gorbachev is telling: "They look at us in the West and wait for us to drown." Schweizer also explains how the reduction in international oil prices helped the American economy while hurting the Soviet economy.

Of course, the Soviets did not accept all of this without a struggle. They even floated a conspiracy among the East Germans and North Koreans to assassinate Reagan in 1983. Nonetheless, their options were few and most realized they had no choice but to try to reach an arrangement with Reagan. This consensus resulted in the selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet Party Secretary. In short, Reagan's actions made Gorbachev's selection possible. Gorbachev desperately sought Reagan's assistance in extricating the Soviet Union from the Afghanistan situation and in reaching an international agreement which would end the SDI. On both accounts, Reagan refused.

In providing his argument about Reagan's accomplishments, Schweizer's approach is amazingly simple; chronicling the actual events and contrasting the activities of the Soviets and of Ronald Reagan. Unabashedly, he trumpets Reagan's philosophy and success. While this book will undoubtedly be subject to accusations of excessive simplicity, both in the author's approach and in Reagan's approach to combating communism, a more honest conclusion is that successful combat is often straightforward. The real tragedy is that it took a half century of communist brutality throughout the world for Americans to realize this truth a revelation made possible only by the courage of one man. Truly, as Schweizer argues, Ronald Reagan stands alone in the 20th century as a unique and tearless leader.