Charles W. Kegley How did the Cold War died.pdf

How Did the Cold War Die Principles for an Autopsy

Charles W Kegley Jr

Mershon International Studies Review Vol 38 No 1 (Apr 1994) pp 11-41

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Jler thon Internntlonnl St~~c-lzec (1994) 38 11-41R P Z Z ~ ~ L ~


Department of Goz~ernment and Internatzonal Studzes

Chzz~ersztj of South Carolzna

This review examines a number of the factors currently advanced to explain why the Cold War died It focuses first on the interpretations posed by political realists from the right because they have received such widespread publicity and because they illustrate the logical and empirical limitations of premature conclusions about the causes of the Cold Wars death This discussion is follolved by a description of possible rival causes T h e review ends with a consideration of the principles of inquiry social science methodology advances and suggests ten guidelines for distinguishing between truth and illusion fact and fantasy

Since the advent of the Cold War policymakers and diplomatic historians have sought unsuccessfull) to arrive at a consensus regarding its origins and the determinants of its evolutionara course Now that to the s u r ~ r i s e of nearlv everjone the Cold War has abkpt l ) ended debate has shifted lfrom animated disputes about the causes of its birth to equall) animated disagreements about the causes of its death

One might initially expect this new debate to continue for many years because the sources of the Cold Wars expiration seem no less elusive or controversial than the sources of its creation But to some there is no need to debate further what has died with the end of the Cold War or what has killed it A number of observers are already convinced that the) have the correct answers and ac- cordingl) that there is little need to suspend judgment or await the construction of a more compelling and cogent explanation T o them the facts are self- evident

Unfortunately man) of the lessons most easily drawn from recent events rest on weak logical and empirical foundations Even if later post-mortems prove these interpretations to be false their premature acceptance could lend credence to a number of ill-founded polic) prescriptions aimed at extending the prevailing great-power long peace (Gaddis 199 1) be) ond the twilight of the twentieth centur) T o separate fact from fiction we need to question these rather recklessl)

The material reviewed here represents what was available on this topic to the author through mid-September 1993 The author would like to acknowledge the comments and criticisms proided on earlier versions of this manuscript by Steven Chan Pamela R Howard Steven I Hook Barrv B Hughes John F Kegley Shannon Lindsey Blanton Gregorb A Raymond Harvey Starr and especially hlargaret G Hermann None of these of course are to be burdened with responsibilit~es for the presentation that follo~vs

1994 The hlershon Center at the Ohio State Universirv Published bv Blackvell Publishers 238 Main Street Cambridge h1A 02142 USA and 108 Covle Road Oxford OX4 IJF UK

12 Houl Dzd ihr Cold W a r Dzel

advanced conclusions about the factors that killed the Cold War and take with a grain of salt any stories about who were the heroes in this tale (Odom 199229) By questioning hastily postulated determinants of the Cold ilars death (and casually defined notions of what precisely has died) we may illuminate the danger of relying on reassuringly simple but possibly fallacious lessons ite may also expand awareness of the need to pursue inquiry more critically and deeply

Some Proposed Causes of the Cold Wars Death Myths or Truths

This review focuses primarily on the interpretations of the Cold Wars demise put forth by political realists from the right Although counter-hypotheses from the center and left also deserve and will receive critical examination those from the right warrant special attention because they have been advanced so boldly and have received such widespread publicity Moreover they illustrate well the logical and empirical limitations of the generally premature conclusions about the causes of the Cold ilars death so pervasive today

Whereas the ideology that informs the opinions of realists from the right is rather amorphous their premises can be said to revolve around four basic convictions These assert that the Cold ilars death is essentially synonymous with the Soviet Unions retreat and fragmentation which were caused by (1) the ilests preparations for war (2) its nuclear weapons and its corresponding capacity to deliver assured destruction and (3) its elaborate alliance system-all of which exerted a powerful impact because (4) the character of the adversarys ideology communism was fatally flawed and only required the ingredients listed above to put it to rest forever

We will take a closer look at the logic behind each of these four propositions In so doing however let us be clear about the purposes of this review It is meant to be constructive not destructive-a catalyst to seeking more satisfactory answers on the causes of the Cold Wars death In suggesting that existing explanations are not adequate my hope is to encourage new efforts and to illuminate some of the principles for an adequate autopsy that might guide those efforts

The purpose is therefore unabashedly didactic The advice stems from the conviction that students of the Cold War are all acting like coroners But trained at different institutions and prisoners of particular paradigms each has been driven to emphasize different pieces of the victims anatomy This invites unwarranted simplification and inhibits investigation of the broad array of plausible explanations that deserve scrutiny Moreover it avoids specifying the principles to govern how to choose among rival causes link them and trace how they interact This is unfortunate because there are many potential causes of death that may be intertwined in the most convincing and complete explanation of why the Cold War died It is u p to historians and political scientists as coroners to study the cadaver thoughtfully and carefully in searching for the true causes My goal therefore is to suggest why such an autopsy is needed and to propose some of the guidelines that might best discipline it

Taking as a premise that we can best see how the pieces fit together as we observe how they fell apart let us first examine the four key propositions argued by the realists from the right about the essential factors in this causal puzzle ite will then proceed with a discussion of possible rival causes and end with a statement about the procedures future coroners might follou~ in conducting more meaningful post-mortems

Dld the Yest Prrparatzonsfo~ Ua Forcr thr U S S R znto Subn~uslonz

Many advocates of vigilant preparations for defense assume that American superiority in the arms race accounted for the implosion of the Soviet empire which in effect terminated the superpower contest with a victory for the ilest Their view springs from the belief that US military preponderance drove the Soviet Union into submission By engaging Moscow in a prohibitively ex- pensive arms race and by staging in 1984 a fake disinformation test of the Strategic Defense Initiative system to fool the Soviets the United States forced the Soviet Union into a competition which exhausted their economic capacity and compelled them to jettison their objective of increasing their influence throughout the globe As George Bush insisted during the second presidential debate We didnt listen to the nuclear-freeze group President Reagan said no peace through strength It worked (CS Seic~sand lliorld Report 199255) The conclusion Facing an unmatchable arsenal Soviet leaders were left with no alternative but to reject communism and to accept imperial devolution The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its efforts to keep up (hfelloan 1993A17)

This faith in the utility of fighting for peace (ileinberger 1990) is predi- cated on the premise that a willingness to spend enough and deploy enough [produced] the right sort of perception in the minds of Soviet leaders (Barnet 198778) Though the estimated ten trillion dollars spent to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War was enough to buy everything in the United States except the land (Sagan 199224) the price is claimed to have been modest given the substantial geopolitical return on the investment

At the heart of the peace-through-strength perspective which credits the US military buildup for causing the submission of a dangerous rival is the core realpolitik tenet that when states acquire the capability to intimidate their ad- versaries militarily they prevail From this tenet in turn beliefs are derived regarding the importance of closing windows of vulnerability and the necessity of negotiating from a position of preponderant power Allegedly the language of military might is the only language an opponent will understand Vacillation encourages intransigence while military prowess provokes earnest efforts to bargain

This world view became implanted in US foreign policy when the Cold War began and never truly lost its grip on American policy planning during the Cold Wars evolution Applying these beliefs to the Soviet Union at the end of World War 11 President Truman (1955552) predicted that unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language another war is in the making His secretary of state James F Byrnes concurred arguing that the only way to negotiate with the Russians is to hit them hard (cited in Paterson 1978314) Similarly Secretary of State Dean Acheson (1969275 728) noted that whenever firm diplomacy shows the Soviets that their position is untenable they hastily abandon it Acting tough is the only avenue to success he concluded Despite protests from the father of the containment doctrine George F Kennan (1967361) these assumptions led in the late 1940s to the view in Washington that containment was a matter of stationing military forces around Soviet borders and preventing any outbreak of Soviet aggressiveness This militant version of containment unfortunately became for Kennan a counterproductive indestructible myth that in a self-fulfilling way encouraged the very kind of stubborn Soviet belligerence that the West most feared

Faith in this world view had not eroded by the time Ronald Reagan came into office and he made it the basis for his initially confrontational approach On January 30 1980 Reagan maintained that more nations can back them-

14 Hou~Dzd the Cold W a r D7e

selves into trouble through retreat and appeasement than by standing up for what they believe and asserted that it was time for the United States to give [the Soviets] some problems to worry about (in Leng 1984339) A decade later on May 4 1990 in Stillwater Oklahoma his vice president George Bush echoed the same belief in the virtues of negotiating from strength when he proclaimed There are few lessons so clear in history as this only the combi- nation of conventional forces and nuclear forces have ensured this long peace in Europe (Apple 19906 see also Bush 1988) Reagan military adviser Rich- ard Perle reaffirmed this faith in taking a hard line arguing that the buildup of American military capabilities contributed mightily to the position of strength that eventually led the Soviet leadership to choose a less bellicose less menacing approach to international politics Claiming that were witnessing the rewards of the Reagan policy of firmness Perle (199135 see also 1992) asserted that had the West succumbed to the siren call of the pacifists this would surely have kept the Cold War going or even allowed the Soviet bloc to win it

Patrick Glynn (1993b 172) punctuates this position summarizing that Ron- ald Reagan won the Cold War by being tough on the communists It was only after three to four years of unremittingly tough policies under Reagan that the desired sea-change in Soviet leadership opinion took place In his mind nations dont cause wars inadvertently by accumulating the military strength to deter them nations cause wars by failing to match or exceed a rising powers capabilities and resolve (Glynn 199060)

This thesis is disarmingly attractive because the Soviet Union did indeed begin to show signs that it might shift course shortly after Americas massive weapons- building program peaked in 1983 The accelerated pace of military spending in the early 1980s probably did signal that the United States was prepared to pay any price for war preparations Given this apparent correlation it is tempting to assume that T3S militarization was the primary cause of the USSRs withdrawal from the arms race com~etition Yet a case can also be made that the rapid changes that occurred s i k e 1989 had hardly anything to do with the changes in Soviet and American capabilities (Kratochwil 199373)

In fact an altogether different and counter-intuitive consequence may be postulated As Kennan warned the massive US peacetime preparations for war may have bred a retaliatory Soviet armament program and a spiraling superpower arms race that educed the securit) of both contestants If this was indeed so then an opposite kind of lesson is suggested name]) that the Cold War might have been unnecessary (Leffler 1991) This conclusion is supported b) empirical evidence about the unintended and unwelcome consequences of armament buildups (hfaoz 1990) It is echoed by Aaron Wildavsk) s (1989A16) observation that From the paradox that defenselessness decreases the prob- abilit) of attack comes the corresponding wisdom that defensive measures onl) breed more dangerous countermeasures to nullify them

It is possible that the Reagan buildup actually stiffened the resolve of the hardliners in the Kremlin to persist in their mortal combat with the ilests capitalists thereb) prolonging the Cold War Georgi Arbatov Director of the Institute for the USA and Canada in Moscou~ advanced just such a view in a written memorandum to the author at a conference sponsored b) the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in Rome on November 7 1991

The version about President Reagans tough policy and intensified arms race being the most important source of perestroika-that it persuaded communists to give up-is sheer nonsense Quite to the contrary this policy made the life for reformers for all who yearned for democratic changes in their life much more difficult In such tense international situations the conservatives and reactionaries were given predominant ~nfluence That is why Reagan made

it practically impossible to start reforms after Brezhnevs death (Andropov had such plans) and made things more difficult for Gorbachev to cut military ex- penditures (See also Arbatov 1992)

This interpretation is certainly as plausible as is the rival peace-through- strength position Rooted in the realpolitik belief that the first duty of states is to increase their militar) capabilities and fight rather than fail to increase capabilities (Kaplan 195723) realist theor) (Snjder 1991 12) was wide of the mark in predicting the changes in Soviet polic) Undertaking a massive militar) buildup and using the Strategic Defense Initiative as a bargaining chip appears to have paid dividends in bringing about Soviet arms control concessions (Gad- dis 1989 1 1) However

the judgment that Reagans tough policies led to success in arms control can be considered compelling only if we ignore where the arms control agenda stood when Reagan entered the LVhite House only if we forget how Reagans policies deliberately blocked many arms control possibilities that hlosco~v sought only if we overlook how Reagan reversed US positions on agreements already drafted and how his policies moved the center of debate over arms control toward the extreme end of the political continuum and encouraged a highly militarized unilateralist foreign policy and only if we think that Reagan had more to do with achieving arms control than did hlikhail Gorbachev and his unprecedented policies and asymmetrical concessions The Reagan administration sabotaged negotiations already far advanced when it entered office refused to ratify important treaties already signed by hioscow and then from the diplomatic rubble that remained finally agreed in part to polish an image tarnished by the Iran-Contra scandal and non-progress in arms control to a treaty banning intermediate-range nuclear arms in Europe Uohansen 1995 forthcoming)

Against the argument that Reagans war preparations produced Soviet surrender is a blatant anomaly The Soviet Union did what many realists claimed was impossible The second most pou~erful state on the face of the earth did voluntarily give up power despite the insistence of international relations theory that this could never happen (Gaddis 1992aA44) Hyper-realism in other words is not terribly realistic about the changing nature of modern states and the kinds of aspirations they entertain because there are many precedents for countries with long histories of imperialism giving up their empires more or less voluntarily (Fukuyama 1992a2827 for evidence also see Gilpin 1981) And here it should also be noted that the Soviet rejection of its allegedly hegemonical aims cannot be attributed to the Reagan military effort to make America stand tall by possessing unmatchable weapons The Soviet retreat from Europe Afghanistan and elsewhere occurred well after that military buildup had lost its momentum and after it became clear that the Wests tough bargaining strategies had failed (Risse-Kappen 199 1) Moreover the notion that the arms race in the 1980s forced the Soviet economy to its knees suffers from the problem that the Soviet economy had been in an even worse state in previous phases of the Soviet empire (Gleditsch 1993357) and also from the potential problem that the defense burden cannot be shown to have increased in the 1980s and thus cannot be shown to link the Reagan military buildup with the collapse of Soviet foreign policy (Chernoff 199 1 1 1 1) Hence Soviet rap- prochement with the West may have had much more to do with other more potent causes These catalysts include those internal factors emphasized by liberal theory such as changes in domestic politics and the leadership changes in the Soviet Union that brought individuals receptive to conciliation with the West into power

Hou~Dzd the Cold W a r Dze

Did luclear Deterrence Ir~dzice S o z ~ ~ e t Surrerlder

Of the explanations of the sources of Soviet surrender perhaps the one that is the most popular among political realists from the right is the corollary proposition that nuclear deterrence drove Soviet leaders to abandon any hope that they might have harbored about prevailing militarily over the West At the heart of this argument is the assumption that Americas awesome nuclear arsenal was so devastating that it made war an irrational choice for Moscows erstwhile expansionists (see for example Mearsheimer 1990) So long as the United States and its allies communicated a credible threat to retaliate against their

u

opponent and possessed the capacity to punish it with unacceptabl) high costs een after absorbing a first strike the Soiet adersar) was dissuaded from attacking Thus the terror of utter deastation ~ r e s e r e d the Deace and u

prompted the end of imperial competition since the frightening costs of nuclear war simply outweighed an) conceivable benefits In support of this claim ad- herents of this proposition note that Nikita Khrushchev among man) others recognized that If you reach for the push button )ou reach for suicide (cited in Brodie 1973375)

As plausible as this explanation is for Soiet restraint it raises the question of what would hae happened after ilorld War I1 had nuclear weapbns not existed (Nye 1989) John iasquez (1991207) illustrates the difficult) in explaining the non-occurrence of events counterfactually by telling the story of a bov in Brookl~n who ran out of his house every afternoon rvavine his arms

U

After observiLg this behavior for several days a durious neighbor asked Why do you run down the street like that at the same time every day The little boy replied to keep the elephants arvay But there are no elephants in Brooklyn insisted the neighbor See it works declared the boy We may laugh at the youngster rvrites Vasquez because rve know that even if there were elephants in Brooklyn they would not be frightened off by someone running wildly down the street at exactlv the same time every dav But he continues if authorities claim their actions ill prevent some drampaded event that we do n i t understand from occurring we have a natural desire to believe them T o conclude that the threat of nuclear annihilation deterred the Soviet Union from aggression persuaded it that it could not successfully compete on the strategic battlefield and encouraged it to accept imperial devolution may be similarly mistaken

Four prominent reasons can be advanced that caution us to suspend judgment about the wisdom of the nuclear ~ e a c e intermetation First we cannot validate the claim that nuclear weapons deterred an attack since hloscow never stood on the verge of deliberatel) launching a premeditated large-scale strike The post- Cold War opening of Soviet archives Robert C Johansen (1995 forthcoming) summarizes proides no eidence of the Soiet intention to attack ilestern Europe or the United States at any time since 1945 As Kennan (1967361) obsened the image of a Stalinist Russia poised and yearning to attack the West and deterred only by [US] possession of atomic weapons was largely a creation of the Western imagination

Second it is difficult to separate out any independent effect produced by nuclear weapons since the) were coincidental rvith other factors that may hae contributed to the Sol iet Unions resDect for the territorial status quo Among u them were the absence of a superpower dispute involving contiguous territory Soviet satisfaction with the gains granted at Yalta and the constraining impact of the Soviets vivid memories of the horrors of World War I1 (Mueller 1989)

Third contrary to the assertion that the specter of nuclear devastation raised the provocation threshold high enough to prevent rvar from erupting under conditions that would have produced war in the past we can argue with equal

CHARLESM KEGLEYJK I f

cogenc) that the existence of nuclear weapons preented the demilitarization of international relations (Arbatov 199050) and exacerbated East-West tensions

Finally given the awesome destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons there is a natural tendenc) to assume that a great powers possession of nuclear weapons will automatically confer upon it the abilit) to deter potential aggressors and exercise influence on the worlds stage and that the increase in the capacity to destroy automaticall) produces commensurate increases in political clout But this intuitiel) attractive inference is dubious for

the primary purpose of superpover nuclear weapons-extended deterrence-has always been of somevhat doubtful utility and the doubts have grown substantially and with good reason over the past two decades Concurrent with the military situation international norms have evolved to reinforce the unusability of nuclear weapons Their unusability has meant that the role of nuclear veapons in reinforcing hierarchies of central power (hegemony) whether glob- ally within alliances or within states has declined (Russett 1989177)

Hence contrary to what might be expected in general nuclear nations have not conszstentl) prevented opponents from attaining contested polic) objectives (Kugler 1984478-479) The power to destroy did not give the United States the power to control Nuclear weapons may ha e been essentially irrelevant to keeping the Cold ilar from becoming hot (Mueller 1988) and to enhancing the bargaining leverage of the United States

T o postulate that nuclear weapons by themsel~es did not accelerate the Cold Wars end however is not to sa) the) did not figure into the Soviet Unions calculations As newly released documents from the Cuban missile crisis (see Blight and Welch 1989 Nathan 1993) illustrate fear of virtual extermination had a sobering effect on those peering into the nuclear ab) ss inducing a restraint that was not evident in the pre-nuclear sjstem Nuclear weapons prolided an incentive for the Kremlin to treat the United States with caution and to seek to develop informal rules to regulate the superpowers competition T h e MAD environment of Mutual Assured Destruction encouraged both sides to accept the necessit) of avoiding direct militar) confrontations of maintaining a sharp distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons and of condoning the first use of the latter onl) as a last resort in defense (George 1986) As a result nuclear deterrence undoubtedl) pla) ed a constructive role in the maintenance of great-power peace although the exact impact is impossible to gauge Its contribution to the end of the Cold War is far more problematic and difficult to judge since counterfactual arguments are highly resistant to h) pothesis testing (Some approaches are available however see Fearon 1991)

Dzd the Wests Allzances Compel Soirtet Submzsszon

Realists on the right also argue that the Wests extensive alliance network was especially instrumental in hastening the Soviet Unions submission They embraced this belief early at the Cold Wars onset and thereafter restated it so often that it became an unquestioned article of faith Following World War 11 most policymakers in the West cast aside the lesson of World War I derived by Woodrow Wilson and other liberal reformers that alliances entangle countries in needless and expanded wars Instead they subscribed to the theory that a free world network of alliances could deter Soviet aggression and augment collective defense in the event that deterrence failed This conviction helps to explain why the United States so energetically built a free world colossus

18 How Did the Cold War Die

(Horowitz 1965) seducing allies with aid and arms When the Cold War ended proponents of this conviction congratulated themselves for their wisdom and credited the Wests alliances with containing Soviet expansionism Containment worked argued President Bush (19894) because our alliances were and are strong

0

At first glance it does seem that the Wests alliances helped to prevent the Cold War from turning hot Yet we cannot conclusively demonstrate that this united front compelled the changes that its advocates allege Rather as some skeptics (Talbott 199070) argue by encircling the Soviet Union in a cordon sanitaire of hostile states allied in a common cause the Wests alliances like its arms may have hardened Soviet resistance and prolonged the Cold Wars life rather than bringing it to a natural death

If Soviet restraint was a ~ r o d u c t of extended deterrence through Americas vast network of alliances hen we should find evidence that thvese alliances prevented a Soviet attack in one or more situations that were ripe for war But the record since 1945 does not vield such evidence The alliances that were erected at the beginning of the ~ d l d War were conceived at a time when neither side arguably was willing to risk a major armed conflict to win its ideological battle While allies served symbolic purposes and may have helped to confine the boundaries of the conflict by de1ieathg each opponents spheEe of influence it is difficult to establish that the balancing and bandwagoning were essential for the Wests security or instrumental in producing its so-called victory As in previous periods during the Cold War military alliances cannot be shown to have contributed directly to successful deterrence (see Organski and Kugler 1980176-179 Kugler 1984 Huth and Russett 1984 and 1988 Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman 1992) Thus we do not have a good reason to attribute the soviet Unions resDect for the territorial status G o to the constraining influence of the Wests alliances It seems more reasonable to assume that nuclear weapons largely mitigated the need for allies to deter an attack (Burns 1964)

In this context we especially need to reconsider the widely enunciated belief in the West that the Soviet Union was deterred from expansionism in Europe by the Atlantic alliance Despite its intuitive appeal this widely held theory cannot be proven If the Soviet Union never seriously craved territorial conquest and as George F Kennan (1987888-889) argues never perceived that Soviet interests would be advanced by a military sweep of Europe we have no basis for concluding that NATO was responsible for Soviet restraint The Atlantic alliance cannot be given credit for preventing something which was not sought in the first place It is true that there has been no world war since April 4 1949 when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed It is also true that NATO was created in part to deter such a conflict It does not necessarily follow however that NATO prevented a war Keep in mind that no war occurred in the tense 1945-1949 period before NATO was formed

Moreover the vocal peace movement in Europe may have had more to do with the Soviet Unions desire to withdraw its forces from Europe (see Cortright 1993 Hudelson 1993) than a Soviet recognition that it could not overrun such a united front Indeed the cohesion of NATO had fractured so badly by the time the USSR signalled its willingness to retreat from Eastern Europe that in order to preserve the NATO alliance the US had been impelled to modify its [belligerent] Cold War policies (Cox 199035)

In addition the presumed pacifying influence of the Wests elaborate alliance network applies only to the European central theatre That influence was not exhibited in the periphery where no less than 269 overt international military actions occurred between September 1945 and 1988 (Tillema 1991) Among

these were Korea Vietnam and Afghanistan Hence the realist argument on behalf of alliances does not account for events outside Europe

Dzd Internatzonal Commztnzsvn Collapse Becaztse zts Character Nas Inherently Flawed

At the heart of the ideological rights convictions about why the Wests strategy succeeded in killing communism is the belief that the nature of the beast (Fairbanks 1993b) contained within itself intrinsic weaknesses that made it vulnerable to external pressure These assumptions spring from a secondary set of premises about the grand failure (Brzezinski 1990) of communisms ideological straightjacket and its alleged inability to provide a practical intellectual program for achieving full development progress and prosperity

The ideological roots of communisms ultimate death are ascribed to a plethora of liabilities by observers from both the right and the left (see Clark and Wildavsky 1990) One version maintains that despite the ostensible appeals of communism (Almond 1954) even the most exploited would become less attracted to its way of life in the long run since communism runs against the grain of the human spirit Philip Dimitrov (1992AlO) expresses this view in arguing The demise of communism was accompanied by what I believe was more than a political revolt It was also a revolt of the soul against the soullessness of communism Another version Dosits that communism died because it was wholly impractical Given communisms inherent unworkability and the valiant resistance it engendered among its victims the Soviet empire was doomed in the long run (Schlesinger 1992bAlO) A third related thesis maintains that communism failed not only because it deprived people of the profit motive but also because it generated poverty It was the squalor more than the terror that really eroded the faith [in Communism] (Gellner 199241)

Still other theories elaborate on this hv~othesized source of dissatisfaction 1

with communism One holds that it was the propensity for communism to gravitate away from its revolutionary origins toward centralization totalitarian- ism and corruption that caused its true believers to turn away from it As Mikhail Gorbachev (cited in The Nezu Yorker January 13 199222) observed This country was suffocating in the shackles of a bureaucratic command system and found itself at the breaking point This theory inspires the conclusion that The Soviets lost the Cold War because of the rot of the Communist system far more than [the United States] won it by the policy of containing Soviet power (Gelb 1992A27) One can reasonably ask Who in their right mind would not reject such a corrupt system of governance (except of course those in power who would benefit personally from its persistence)

This postulated cause of repudiation is connected to another explanation namely that communism could not rival the success of its alternative a liberal free-market capitalist economy It is averred that not just in Moscow but throughout Eastern Europe and in Beijing people have rejected communisms planned economy because capitalisms superior performance and productivity have undermined confidence in communisms proclaimed ability to generate prosperity As Francis Fukuyama (1992b41) puts in this triumphant liberalism thesis Communisms terminal crisis began in some sense when the Chinese leadership recognized that they were being left behind by the rest of capitalist Asia and saw that socialist central planning had condemned China to back- wardness and ~overtv

Underlying all these interpretations of the failed consequences of communist practice is therefore the contention itself ideological that the character of communist doctrine left it exposed to an inevitably terminal illness Every suc-

20 H o ~ L ~Did the Cold War Die

cessful ideology tends to breed its antithesis and communism is no exception Once communism began to win converts in the 1920s anticommunism arose in reaction During the Great Depression this opposing movement derived its strength from the fears that developed when communisms then-trenchant cri- tique of unrestrained capitalism began to appeal to mass publics throughout the globe (see Almond 1954) In effect anticommunism became a counter-ideology (Parenti 1969) that chastised communism as a god doomed to fail and itself became an ideological force displaying the same fanaticism and Mani- chaean certainty as the philosophy it sought to combat Because both ideological movements saw its adversary as a malevolent enemy there was no room for compromise or co-existence The Cold War became for true believers of both faiths a zero-sum game (Commager 1965)

Communisms flagrant inefficiencies unquestionably did contribute to its ultimate demise But if communism lies at the root of the USSRs failed experiment we must explain why that same system produced a rate of growth that for nearly fifty years exceeded that of the industrialized countries in the first world (Kontorovich 1993) The Soviet economy was not in itself a failure The population worked ate was clothed and sheltered and even multiplied (Klen- bort 1993107) There is something inconsistent about the confidence with which todays more conservative Cold Warriors now so assuredly diagnose communisms rapid death as if it were predestined because it was an obstacle to economic growth We have here a paragon of the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc (after it therefore because of it) If communism was so fatally flawed from its inception why did it live so long As regimes go seventy years is a fairly long life span Most of the founding fathers of the fledgling United States did not project the revolutionary American experiment in democracy to survive as long (Schlesinger 1986)

Those who now confidently assert that communism was doomed to die from natural causes such as Brzezinski (1990) are among the same observers who for decades went to great lengths to warn that communism was on the move that it threatened to win and that the West was in grave peril from this ascendant clear and present danger The Russians were coming and only heroic effort could stop the crashing dominoes Thus developed the belief that the Russians were ten foot tall If this was indeed the case how could it be that in such a short span of time the giant was transformed into a midget To see a great power go almost overnight from invincible adversary to wasting corpse casts doubt on the credibility of the theory that the victim was chronically moribund from the very beginning We cannot have it both ways

Those on the Right Are Probably Wrong

The interpretations of the determinants of the Cold Wars death reviewed above comprise but a select sample of writings by political realists from the right They accordingly provide a glimpse into this mind set but certainly not a full por- trayal of the rationale behind the conclusions of those conducting the inquest Still while their arguments are more varied nuanced and discordant than suggested those realists from the right who sing a dirge for communism seem to sing from essentially the same sheet music Their message gravitates toward a consensus about the central factors perceived to have produced the Wests so- called victory over communism and over the spearhead of the communist challenge the Soviet Union

In addition the refrain of this song seems to reflect the tendency by those who

were themselves participants in the Cold War conflict to misperceive both their own and their adversarys conduct These observers fall victim to the propensity of exaggerating their own effect on the others behavior overestimating the others hostility and resorting to a structural interpretation of the others friendly behavior while at the same time stressing intentionality in explaining their own conciliatory behavior (Jervis 1976) hlore specifically these arguments assign potency almost exclusively to the international and ideological sources of Soviet change and in so doing neglect the internal and individual influences that contributed to Soviet reforms and prepared the way for the Cold Wars funeral

As shown in Table 1 a plethora of additional plausible explanations for the Cold Wars death have been advanced (For elaboration see Kegley and Ray- mond 199442-44)

The realist rights interpretation of the reversal of seventy years of Soviet practice largely discounts and dismisses the contribution of influences that transcended the autonomous nation-state such as the instantaneous dissemination of liberal ideas and ideals through telecommunications worldwide and the influences within the Soviet Union and its external empire that liberal theorists tend to emphasize such as anti-corruption campaigns (see Holmes 1993) Thus the rights account suffers from the two-fold limitations of the realist paradigm It takes no account of transnational processes and it does not explain sub- systemic change (Haftendorn 1992498)

The mounting investigation into the Cold Wars demise suggests that it is unlikely that we can safely limit our explanation to the four factors that realists on the right ask us to accept Indeed it seems inherently reckless to explain revolutionary changes in world affairs as dramatic as a hegemons withdrawal from global competition by reference to a few variables Somehow the reality falls through the interstices of [these] theories (Draper 19928) In all probability the Cold Wars peaceful end resulted not from a single toxin but from many Tunnel vision impairs our ability to see the myriad causes of the Cold Wars death The picture must be broadened

The potential for myopia is not of course confined to the realist right Those whose interpretation is inspired by liberal and neoliberal theorizing in international relations as an alternative to realism (for samples see the essays in Bald- win 1993 and Kegley 1995) are also prone to restrict their explanations to particular factors and processes that discount rival factors as unimportant The liberal challengers from the left also need to develop an account that balances internal and international determinants of the Cold Wars death

In the analysis of the Cold Wars death therefore we confront generically the difficulties associated with the well-known level of analysis problem (Singer 1961 also see Waltz 1954) The need exists to trace the causes of the Soviet Unions withdrawal from Cold War competition not only to factors operative at the international or systemic level as those on the political right would have it but also to changes produced by actors and their activities at the national and the individual levels This analytic principle recommends for example the changes in Soviet domestic circumstances that liberal theoreticians stress (such as a deteriorating economy nationalism the growth of grassroots reform movements and mobilized public opinion-see hlason 1992) be worked into the causal chain the hardliners argue This process would allow George Kennans (1967364) thesis that Soviet ambitions could be contained by a strategy per-

22 How Did thr Cold War Die

I HIamp 1 Kival Irnages of the Causes of Communisms Collapse

Economic Factors Economic mismanagement S o other [than the Soviet Cnion] industrialized state

in the torlcl for so long spent so much of its national rvealth on armaments and military forces Soviet militarism in harness with communism clestroyed the Soviet economy and thus hastened the self-destruction of the Soviet empire

-Fred Charles Ikle ( I 991-199228)

The economic burdens of Gorbachevs cooperative initiatives towarcl the United hegernonic competition States came at a time hen the Soviet leadership no

longer believed that it rvas riding the wave of an inevitable Communist triumph in its competition rvith the IVest and xvhen the current and potential costs of that competition were weighing heavily on a struggling Soviet econorny

-Sfartin Patchen (199033)

A truce necessitated bv The rnetamor~hosis in the US-Soviet relationshiv superpoter decline was the result of two interconnected factors a formal

recognition by the Soviet Union that to tackle its extraordinar economic clifficulties it had to seek a permanent settlement it11 the capitalist odd and a groting recognition in IVashington that to keep the worlcl stable ~vhile it addressed its otn economic problerns (sorne the result of Reagans policies) a deal with the Soviet Cnion would be highly desirable

-1fichael Cox (199033)

Epistemic Communities The Soviet intelligentsia ere The Gorbachev-era earthquake had fundamental the gravediggers of political causes which rvere its slnr qua non [But] cornmunisrn political factors do not tell the whole story For rvhile

the rnajor rnile posts of Soviet reform may have been initiated from above they received crucial support frorn belorv The Soviet intelligentsia ernbracecl [glasnost] enthusiastically and proceeded to push the boundaries of the permissible

-Francis Fukuyama (1 993 10-1 1 )

The ~deological appeal of Stany of the dernonstrators rvho sought to reject liberal dernocrac~ communist rule looked to the American system for

inspiration Hut the source of that inspiration rvas Americas reputation as a haven for the values of lirnited government not IVashingtons $300 billion-a- year military budget and its netrvork of global military bases

-Ted Galen Carpenter (199 I ST-38)

Dernocratic reformers in Kussia Russia did not lose the Cold IVar The Communists did A clemocratic Russia deserves credit for clelivering the knockout blow to Comrnunism in its motherland

-Richard Sf Nixon (1993417)

Leaders and Leadership Ihe individual leader as mover In just less than seven years Rlikhail Gorbachev of history transformed the world He turned his own country

upside dorvn He tossed away the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe with no more than a fare-thee-well He ended the cold war that had dominated world politics and consu~ned the rvealth of nations for nearlyhalf a century The most obvious thing that just doesnt happen in the Gorbachev revolution was Gorbachev himself

-Robert G Kaiser (199211 13)

[The end of the Cold [car was possible] primarily because of one man-Slikhail Gorbachev The transformations we are dealing with now would not have begun were it not for him His place in history is secure

-CS Secretary of State James A Baker III (in Oberdorfer l99laA33)

Tenor of the Times A supportive international lhe hard international environment of the early environment for political 1980s obliged the Soviet leadership to consider change suicide but tough Icestern policies alone could not finish the

job Reagan Thatcher Hush and the other IVestern leaders who dealt with Gorbachev had only limited leverage over hirn chat they did in effect was hand him a gun and suggest that he do the honorable thing As is often true of such situations the victi~n-to-be is Inore likely to accept the advice if it is offered in the gentlest possible way and if he concludes that his friends family and colleagues rvill in the end think better of him for going through rvith it For Soviet communism the international environment of the late 1980s was a relaxed setting in which after much anguished reflection to turn the gun on itself

-Stephen Sestanovich (199330-31)

Fortune and fate The Soviet Union while manifestly in trouble as many observed was not poised for a collapse nor was it even in acute crisis The Soviet Cnion was viable and probably could have lasted another decade or two with good fortune a good bit longer but deeply flawed it was vulnerable to adverse chance events Viable but vulnerable the Soviet Union was hostage to bad fortune That the invalid did not live but died at the hands of an unlikely doctor employing untried medicine owed much to chance

-hfyron Rush (1993 19)

24 H0711Did the Cold War Die

Disintegrative pressure from within the communist emplre

Domestic Political Factors Media publicit) of Soviet moral weakness

Domestic dissatisfaction

Pressure from the grassroots peace molements

The rise of nationalism in the former republics

The acute phase of the fall of cornrnunism started outside of the Soviet Cnion and then spread to the Union itself BY 1987 Gorbachev made it clear that he lvould not interfere rvith internal experiments in Soviet bloc countries As it turned out this was a -ast blunder If Poland could become independent whv not Lithuania and Georgia Once cornmunisrn fell in Eastern Europe the alternative in the Soviet Cnion became civil war or dissolution The collapse of the Soviet Union might well be called the revenge of the colonie5

-Daniel Klenbort ( 1993 107)

It as the moral reassessment of the seventy-odd )ears of this socialist experiment that shook the nation not Ronald Reagans Star IVars It lvas the flood of publications of the Soviet Unions human rights record and its tremendous distortions of moral and ethical principles that discredited the system especially when introduced into the everyday lives of its individual citizens through the popular media This is hat focused the drive for change and first made people ate against representatiles of the morally corrupt old political elite

-ladimir Benevolenski and Andrei Kortunov (1993 100)

Some conservatiles argue that the Reagan defense buildup forced Gorbachev to change his policies And clearly the Soviets ere concerned about haling to compete lith US technological superiority But it seems likely that internal pressures played as much if not more of a role in convincing the Soviet leader to agree to measures that cut his countrys firepoler more than they cut US strength

-Carl P Leubsdorf (199 1 D3)

The changes wrought b j the thousands of people serving in the trenches [ere] essential to events in recent gt-ears and at least partially responsible for [ending the Cold War]

-David Cortright (199Sforthcoming)

In less than two years cornrnunis~n collapsed everyhere The causes [ere] the national communities not social groups or indiliduals

-Helene Carrere dEncausse (1993270)

mitting the internal weaknesses of Soviet power to produce communisms death to receive the respect it probably deserves

Similarly consciousness of the level-of-analysis distinction forces the analyst to consider how the values and psychological predispositions of those who made the decisions to reverse course helped to engineer the change It exerts pressure to peel away the layers that neorealists place around the state preventing the politics and personalities within it from being seen so that consideration might be given to the degree to which the preferences of Mikhail Gorbachev-the man who changed the world (Sheehy 1990)-deserve credit for making the Cold Wars death a fact of life T h e Cold Wars expiration is not just a story of how America changed the world (Haig and McCarry 1993) it is also a story of how those in hloscow changed it If we open up this set of black-boxed factors so as to take into account the influence of people and politics within states we can more impartially investigate the probability that the Cold War died due to the interaction of causes at various levels of analysis and not as some realists and neorealists on the political right argue as a consequence of the Wests coercive diplomacy or the imbalance in the distribution of military power that the Reagan militarization program produced

In effect most of the contemporary conjectural explanations of the Cold Wars death being advanced from both the right and the left derive from a rather crude unsophisticated causal story that conceals their policy agendas (Stone 1989) and violates the most elementary principles of causal inference on which social science at least since John Stuart Mill (1843) has rested Note here that by the very nature of the puzzle occupying their attention-the reasons for the collapse of the Cold War these would-be coroners have thrown themselves into a subject area that requires the analysis of causes of the victims death And for this kind of intellectual exercise ideology and polemics will not suffice It is inadmissible to derive conclusions deductively from prior convictions A coroners investigation must be balanced by inductive inquiry and at that not a simplistic historicism that selectively collects the facts supporting ones preferred theory For a causal theory to be convincing it must be falsifiable T o meet this condition there needs to be a weighing of the evidence following the accepted rules of causal inference and an entertainment of rival hypotheses about the factors that finished off the Cold War

Social Science to the Rescue

Social science methodology provides principles of inquiry that can partially rectify the threats to valid causal inference inherent in most of the illustrative autopsies selected for review T h e political rights propositions (as well as the counter-hypotheses favored by liberal and neoliberal theorists) are amenable to testing T h e skepticism of some (for example Gaddis 1992-1993) notwithstand- ing the distance between truth and illusion and between fact and fantasy can be reduced if their propositions are analyzed in accordance with these basic rules of interpretation T h e following ten seem to warrant emphasis

In analyzing any outcome it is necessary to be precise about exactly what phenomenon is being analyzed We cannot attempt to trace causes until the dependent variable is identified clearly and preferably defined in operational terms by reference to the indicators that might measure it

In our case what is really meant by the death of the Cold War What

26 Elout Dzd the Cold 1f7(~Iltr

exactly died Here discourse has failed to be specific about the presumed corpse Indeed observers have not indicated what they mean by the so-called end of the Cold War They often speak inconsistently about quite different dimensions of the revolutionary changes that swept the world between 1989 and 1991 We often find the death equated with the end of Soviet geopolitical momentum and Communist Partv control concomitant with the birth in hloscow of a market economy and experimentation with democratic governance Alternatively we find mention of the end of a credible military threat between the superpowers the end of the superpowers arms race the death of superpower confrontation and the advent of superpower detente the disintegration of the Soviet Unions external empire in Eastern Europe and its internal empire with the fragmentation of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and even the last gasp of the monolithic international communist movement T h e dependent variable-the end of the Cold War-has not in short been disaggregated into its discrete components Instead conjecture has been prone to discuss at least two distinct dimensions external r a ~ ~ r o c h e m e n t and internal liberalization as if

I I

they were part and parcel of the same phenomenon Quite axiomatically the causes of each of these separate developments col-

lectively signalling the Cold Wars death are different Until coroners differentiate which vital systems of the corpse are being investigated it is unlikely that progress in the autopsy can be made In brief the causes of the Cold Wars death cannot be analyzed in the absence of a specific definition of the phenomenon that has passed from the scene

Coroners cannot write an accurate autops) until the) first agree about the identity of the corpse whose death comprises the subject of observation Should the focus be restricted to the Soviet Union and the rejection of its foreign and domestic policies If so what does this restriction d o to the problematic role of China in the Cold Wars conclusion If China is also a component of the Cold Wars end then the account must be altered Nixons visit predated perestroika vet Chinas internal liberahation still lacs behind the former Soviet Union and communist totalitarian rule continues in China even though that governments control of the economy has been relaxed

If the focus of inspection is the dyadic relations between the two superpowers then we must construct a auite different ex~lana t ion for the conversion of an entrenched great-power rivalry to accommodation and even cooperation This interpretation would necessarily require a period of observation that takes into consideration the interaction between long- and short-term forces in causing the death of the epic hegemonic struggle We may need to trace the origins ovf superpower detente at least to the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis and to evaluate the effect of that prior achievement on the much later Soviet internal liberalization orchestrated during Corbachevs reforms

For a meaningful post-mortem therefore the domain of observation must first be empirically specified T h e interactive linkages between these separate actors and activities can then be considered in a process model that examines the relationships between policy feedback and political change when effect becomes cause To be convincing policy learning arguments must offer clear propositions about the conditions that lead particular actors to view previous initiatives in positive or negative terms Further they need to show that the policies have some significant independent impact on actors political behavior rather than simply contributing to actors accounts of their actions (Pierson 1993616)

CHARLESM K E G L E ~ J R

In writing an autopsy of the Cold Wars seeming death perhaps we need to hold the presses It is possible that the inquest is premature Paralleling Mark Twains famous quip that rumors of his death were premature an obituary on the Cold War could easily look foolish in the near future Although the Cold War as we have known it is unlikely to revive embers may still smolder Though its light dwindles the oxygen of recidivism and revanchism could rekindle communisms vitality and the current phase could in hindsight look like a mere interregnum in an otherwise consistent trajectory

The historically-minded observer is apt to appreciate the possibility of rever- sals in conditions that at the time appear permanent Cycles are a persistent property of international relations especially in the expansion and contraction of the Russian empire (Dunlop 1993) Previous periods of great-power peace have regularly been followed by renewed periods of conflict especially under conditions of multipolarity (See Kegley and Raymond 1994 for a comparison of six previous multipolar systems)

Accordingly we should not treat the Cold War dichotomously as if it were either alive or dead Some of its characteristics are now and perhaps forever dead and buried with only remote prospects for their revival and resurrection But others are merely near death with recovery a distinct possibility the end of democratic reform experiments and potential return of Russian dictatorial rule and even imperialism are representative possibilities And still other features of the ghost of the Cold War continue to cast shadows Communist party rule in China North Korea Vietnam and Cuba is very much alive despite policy endorsements of liberal capitalism in some of these countries Any of these parts of the Cold War corpus could revive and the creature whose funeral is being celebrated in the West could be with us once again

Addressing the US Congress on his 1992 visit to Washington President Boris Yeltsin declared that The world can sigh in relief the ideal of Commu- nism which spread social strife enmity and unparalleled brutality everywhere which instilled fear in humanity-has collapsed I am here to assure you We shall not let it arise again in our land Yet

t1to years after Communist hard-liners tried to seize control of the Kremlin t~k0 years after Russias president banned Communist activities on Russian soil the Reds again are the biggest organized force in the land Conlmunism cant be buried an- more than all humankind can be buried Yegor Iigachev a long- standing enem- of Yeltsins and the No 1 conservative on the old Soviet Polit- buro [proclaimed in August 19931 (Dahlburg 1993A6)

T o take cognizance of the fragility or possible impermanence of the Cold Wars burial it is wise to think of it as a phenomenon nested within the larger process of which it is a part-the ebb and flow over time between periods of accommodation and conflict in the relations between great-power rivals on the one hand and between periods of democratic and authoritarian rule within nations on the other The current phase may be merelj another inflection point in these larger cyclical propensities

4 S P P ~Szmplzczty But Vat Szmplzstzc The09

Recall that whereas science-and the comparative method so critical to it- recommends that the researcher search for simplicity and parsimony science also counsels the scientist to distrust simple theories in the absence of over- ~ v h e l m i n ~evidence that they capture powerfully the phenomenon under examination In other words seek simplicity but distrust simplistic theory All of

2 8 Hou Dzd the Cold llrar Dze

the theories cited above from both realists on the right and liberals on the left are highly parsimonious They all presume that the Cold Wars death can be accounted for by reference to one or at most a few causal influences (For example the realist right proposes US militarization nuclear deterrence the Wests alliance network and communisms ideological weakness the left argues for transnational and subnational forces promotive of cooperation and change) But single factor theories of social phenomena are rarely robust and all of todays popularized theories are no exception There is a need to think in terms of multiple causation if a more satisfactory explanation is to be constructed

The rigorous analvsis of the Cold Wars death that has yet to be completed begs for a multivariate treatment Ideally it would seek to weigh the relative potency of the various postulated causes (for example the various theories independent variables) before rushing to judgment that factor X must have been the exclusive cause Because correlates provide clues about the locus of causation monocausal speculations are a useful way to begin the inquest But they are not sufficient to conclude it It is wise to resist the temptation to rely on ceteris paribus logic since a richly abundant number of causes of the victims demise were clearly operative and all were probably not equally influ- ential So we should refrain from hasty conclusions until the relative weight of these contributing factors can be better estimated

5 Co r~lntzon Doe iot Estnbl~sh Causntzon

This discussion brings us to a very elementary principle namely that correlation is not causation Co-variation of two phenomena such as the Reagan military buildup and the reversal of the Soviet Unions policies does not permit us to conclude that the former was the determinant of the latter as any beginning student in logic learns None of these hypothesized single causes can be convincingly validated by the fact that they occurred concomitantly with the dis- mantling of the Soviet empire For his reliance on this fallacious argument during his campaign for re-election George Bush was rightly ridiculed (Rem- nick 1993a) T h e fact that Bush was in office when the Soviet Union unravelled does not permit him to take credit for engineering that development Coinci- dence is not causation

6 Consrd~r the Posszbzlzt of S z~r~u l tn r~~ous Cnusal I Y L ~ ~ P Y L C P S

The previous consideration in turn introduces another complication to the task of tracing causation-the high probability that many causal influences were si- multaneously at work and that these interactively and synergistically promoted the reversal of the Soviet Unions foreign policies that caught most everyone particularly hardliners by surprise (Deudney and Ikenberry 1992 124) At issue is how we can credit any one variable as the definitive cause of the end of the Cold War when we know that it is extremely unlikely that a single factor could have produced the result in the absence of the influence of the other factors Surely for example Reagans bargaining strategy if he had a coherent one might not have made a contribution had not visionary Soviet leaders such as Andropov and Gorbachev been in power and become convinced of the need to chart a new path While the accurate description of the impact of these multiple influences on one another and their complex interdependencies must await further analysis merely by bringing the light into their simultaneous existence we can provide an antidote to the unwarranted closure we find in many of the arguments under consideration T h e patent disagreements among

contemporary analysts thus force serious consideration of the principles on which investigators must rely in order to uncover the causes of expiration

This discussion raises the specter of a colossal multicollinearity problem Many influences on the Cold Wars end were operative at once and as these were themselves correlated there is a great danger that we will mistake a spurious cause for a direct one To avoid this we must take into account the substantial literature that addresses the interactive impact of rivals actions on subsequent behavior and the degree to which reciprocated responses of both superpowers changed the quality of the Soviet-American relationship There is strong evidence that throughout the Cold War any substantial effort to reduce tensions initiated by either Washington or Moscow brought about a proportionate response in kind from the other (Triska and Finley 196538) Each actor shaped the others actions As Neil R Richardson (1987 170) summarizes the evidence shows that [when] the United States provided economic welfare benefits to the Soviets [it] in return received (1) increases in both verbal and nonverbal cooperative behavior and (2) major decreases in verbal and nonverbal conflict behavior from Moscow Likewise during the Cold War the Soviets and Americans responded to each others strategic deployments and doctrines in remarkably reciprocal and symmetrical ways (see documentation in Kegley and Wittkopf 199392 and 427-428) The tit-for-tat dynamics through which cooperative relations may evolve between enemies appears applicable to the Cold Wars evolution and termination as Robert Axelrods (1984) research suggests Gor- bachev may have succeeded in bringing the Cold War contest to a peaceful end in part by employing a strategy like Charles E Osgoods (1962) well-known GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction) one which John F Kennedy attempted successfully for a six-month period before an assassins bullet terminated his experiment (see Etzioni 1967)

The assumption central to this line of inquiry is that in explaining the birth and death of a protracted rivalry it is important to consider the extent to which the behavior of one party affects the responding behavior of the other If as much evidence shows behavior tends to be reciprocated in these exchanges with hostility breeding hostility and cooperation breeding cooperation then an adequate account of the Cold Wars death would need to build the repetition and reinforcement through repeated rewards to cooperative actions into the autopsy The Cold Wars cycle of mutual fear and enmity was broken through the tacit reciprocity that developed during its final stage whereas its continuation was prolonged when a hostile mode of interaction was characteristic This proposition conforms to the explanation provided by Dr Jin Junhui of Chinas Institute of International Studies in an interview with the author in Beijing on July 17 1993 Arguing that the Soviet Unions behavior largely determined the Cold Wars end he hypothesized that Soviet foreign policy would have been very different and less bellicose during the Cold War had Soviet leaders not felt encircled by the West and that it was only after their fears receded that Soviet leaders felt comfortable charting a different course Underlying this and similar interpretations is the need to contemplate how the actions of each party to the Cold War confrontation may mutually have influenced each other

The problem of interdependent independent variables must be addressed To conduct a meaningful autopsy the relative influence of the complex interdependencies among the contributing causes must be unraveled Caution and skepticism are needed until subsequent research can more confidently separate precipitant from preconditional influences primary from secondary or facilitative determinants necessary from sufficient causes immediate from long-term effects and domestic from both the international and personal sources of radical national and international change

30 Houj Did [he Cold W a r Die

7 Cause Must Precede Consequence

Next we must consider the importance of chronological sequence to this enterprise The comparative method instructs us that something cannot logically be a cause of something else unless changes in the cause precede the observed ettect or consequence

Many of the conjectured causes of the subjects death considered here come dangerously close to violating this rule of causal inference For example many advocates of the influence of the West assume that the changes in the Soviet Union occurred only after the Reagan military buildup Typical is Patrick Glynn (199313 172) who alleges that the Soviets reversed course following Reagans reestablishment of a-position of strength through a massive arGs builudup through deliberately tough talk (culminating in the evil empire line) through uncompromising (and widely criticized) positions on arms control through ac- tive harassment of Soviet imperial efforts in the Third World (including Gren- ada) through a tightening of technological export controls and through (for the Soviets) the frightening prospect of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) T o be more chronologically accurate we should note that Andropov and Gor- bachev began to shift-their countrys course not when ~eagans-unrestrained hostility toward the Russians was being most energetically practiced (Leng 1984) but only after Reagan himself shifted to a more accommodative course as reflected in his radical anti-nuclear turnaround This shift in Washington began to crystallize in 1984 became transparent at the October 1986 Reykjavik Sum- mit and finally coalesced into Reagans personal commitment to compromise and conciliation After his second election four summit meetings were held the INF treaty was signed bilateral relations expanded and key regional disputes were resolved Reagan even stopped referring to the USSR as an evil empire (Cox 199035) And only then (as a consequence) did the Soviet Union begin to accelerate the pace of its initiatives at tension reduction and move aggressively forward with its efforts to bury the Cold War

Thus US moderation not toughness preceded and promoted a favorable climate in which the Soviet changes could develop These actions by Reagan may have been the necessary antecedents to the soviet leaders hi^^ turn to a new policy In this sense Reagan deserves his share of credit for taking Mikhail Gorbachev seriously abandoning the zero-sum fallac) he had embraced for so long and moving the Cold War toward its end (Schlesinger 1992a53)

8 Polzcy Purpose Does Not Necessa~zl~ Explnzrl Outcome

While it is tempting to link the observed changes in Moscow to the preferences of Washington policymakers it is difficult to establish that connection For one thing such an inference would presume that the Reagan administration had from the start a deliberate strategy in mind for ending the Cold War But we cannot document the existence of such a strategy Recall that Reagan himself announced that his Soviet policy did not seek to promote the Soviet Unions collapse We are not out to change their system and they better not try to change ours (US News and World Report October 15 198420) A preference is not a program a posture is not a policy and a position is not a plan T o be sure there existed in Washington man) who wished to see the evil empire disintegrate and Reagan and a few supporters did begin to inch and muddle against the resistance of hardliners in his own administration on a new conciliatory path Those officials however who most fought the emerging rapproche- ment who unexpectedly found their wildest wishes fulfilled were among those most caught off guard by the changes

Nor does the outcome mean that the hardliners in the Oval Office engineered the welcomed result Interest does not establish influence and a preference fulfilled does not necessarily relate to the outcome The t r i u m ~ h that was celebrated did not necessarily emanate from the proposals that the most vocal hardline celebrants forged The collapse of support for communism in the Soviet Union could have occurred for reasons that had little or nothing to do with CS hardliners preferences As Russian Cold War historian Vladislav Zubok reported at a University of Wisconsin conference on October 18 1991 The Reagan military buildup was only indirectly a factor in my countrys rejection of communism and acceptance of its satellites independence and largely irrelevant

Stories from those praising the consequences of US strategies should thus be greeted with considerable skepticism In the case of the Cold Wars mirac- ulous dissolution writes David Remnick (1993a 105) the results were a product of dumb luck rather than a consciously crafted plan as claimed by George Bush Bush mistook his great good fortune for greatness itself His vanity was that of the heir who claims his trust fund as a credit to his own initiative It is hard to read the moving testimonies of the officials involved at the time as reported by Michael R Beschloss and Strobe Talbotts (1993) comprehensive At the Highest Levels and remain confident in the hardliners claims that thev

0

engineered the Wests triumph These very policymakers could not give yes as an answer to Gorbachevs repeated offers to compromise in order to move beyond the Cold War (Talbott 1990) Had Gorbachev not transcended their resistance we might still be living in the dark shadow of Cold War hostility

9 Djnnmzc Inferences are Ir~app~oprzate from Stntzc Data

This interpretation speaks to an important and related inferential principle Cause-and-effect relations seldom evolve from a single intervention act or policy but more characteristically arise from the cumulative impact of a gradual or evolutionary process It is dangerous to make dynamic inferences from static data in large part because causal influences are usually linked in a sequence of interconnected events that unfold over a protracted period Reagans allegedly simple plan-to negotiate but to do so from a position of strength (Glynn 199313 172) occurred in a moving stream of developments rooted in memories of the past To capture where this component of US strategy fit into the eauation (before it itself was modified) we need to dace it into a lonnitudinal

1 a process model that weighs its impact (if any) as one element in a series of catalytic steps that through time built on one another In isolation a single event or interventionary factor rarely accounts for an outcome satisfactorily death produced by an assassins bullet or Japans surrender following Americas atomic annihilation of Hiroshima are examples of these rare exceptions Because politicians cannot comprehend fully the consequences of any particular policy or action [and] can never know enough to gauge fully the effect of any particular policy we should not place great confidence in their stories that can never be proved right because there is always other evidence (Kaldor 199034 36) Nor should we write obituaries now for something whose death may have occurred 20 or 30 years earlier when both sides accepted the division of Europe (Lynch 1992)

10 Recognzze the Lzmztatzons of Case Studzes zn Rezlealzng General Patterns

In searching for the causes of the Cold Wars death coroners need to be ever mindful of a final analytic principle There are many dangers in extrapolating general patterns from a single case The historiographies and propositions cited


above invite conclusions about an epochal event in international relations un- foreseen by almost all experts ~ r o h these conclusions generalizations about the dynamics governing great-power relations have hastily and perhaps falla- ciously been derived At the same time this unanticipated event has been used to expose the alleged deficiencies of dominant theories in international relations as many scholars (Gaddis 1992-1993) have accepted the view that the collapse of the Soviet system and the end of the Cold War throw serious doubt about the ability of current theoretical frameworks to predict major change (Gleditsch 1993357)

Both tendencies are misdirected and potentially mistaken With regard to the first unwarranted inference it is imwortant to recall that a case studv is ~rimari lv I

an exercise in heuristics The case study is used as a means of stimulating the imagination in order to discern important new general problems identify possible theoretical solutions and formulate potentially generalizable relations that were not previously apparent The case study is regarded as an opportunity to learn more about the complexzt~of the problem studied (George 197951- 52) But a case study does not permit the analyst to conduct a meaningful test of a general theory because the case under examination might comprise an exception to the general pattern that the theory seeks to explicate A single exception or deviant case does not disconfirm a general theory it only diminishes the extent to which its predictive and explanatory power is potent The purpose of case studies therefore is to illuminate properties of a general pattern and thereby refine understanding of the phenomena under investigation not to validate theories that speak to the case

Seen in this light we should avoid equating conclusions suggested about the causes of the Cold Wars death with determinants of the larger phenomenon of which the Cold Wars death is a part The Cold War may be a subset of a larger auestion but we would be mistaken to lear from inferences about the charac- 1 I

teristics of this single event to inferences about macro patterns The case under examination the Cold War inspires the investigator to ask with James N Rosenau (197131) Of what larger pattern is this behavior an instance But the inquest does not give us sufficient information to know how the Cold Wars death is similar or different from other cases of hegemonic rivalries that ended without warfare For that goal comparisons are requzred (Eckstein 1975)

With regard to the second unwarranted inference-that the case of the Cold Wars death allows us to discern the utility of extant theories-we confront a classic example of an over-specified case With a sample of one we have a multitude of independent or explanatory factors alongside confined variation in the dependent variable Close study or thick description of this case does not permit a general theory to be put to a fair confirmatory test This case provides perhaps a critical test of such theories as realism and neorealism which make the claim that thev can best exwlain and wredict the behavior of great powers in competition and here these theories woefully failed in their s~ec ia l domain of observation Yet this event does not diswrove these theories

I

which have been quite fecund in explaining past patterns of great-power rivalries The Cold Wars death merely presents a blaring exception to an otherwise general set of empirically grounded historical propensities Instead of discarding realism and neorealism and labelling them a paradigm lost Uablonsky 1993) it would be wiser for would-be Cold War coroners to use the corwse as an opportunity to evaluate how the victims death compares with other cases of the peaceful resolution of great-power conflicts and to examine how well theories of international relations have survived the death of the Cold War (for examples see Bowker and Brown 1993 and Jowitt 1992) The Cold War in short is best seen as a case to be used for theory building instead of theory verification And

CHAKLESM K E G L E ~ 33JK

for that purpose coroners will need to frame a research design that contains many observations whose pattern(s) can be captured through comparisons

In sum the above analysis suggests that the factors that dug the grave of the Cold War remain poorly understood Yet as the preceding review of popular theories illustrates many observers seem to think they fully understand the sources of the Wests so-called victory despite the fact that their simplistic interpretations are based more on speculation and ideology than on concrete evidence T o the extent that these untested single-cause beliefs become an entrenched dogma there is some risk that policymakers will act on misleading but seductive historical lessons and continue to see the world in terms of the 1947 mindset (Ikle 1990 14 see also Clarke 1993) Adherence to the principles of causal inference can vaccinate against this danger providing that coroners autopsies seek to test multivariate explanations This prescription of course applies equally to coroners from the right and coroners from the left

Where to Resume Inquiry The Probable Locus of Causation

As researchers prepare to explore more carefully the determinants of the Cold Wars death their efforts may initially produce more controversy not less Definitive answers are likelv to be elusive because the auest must surmount considerable analytic obstacles including those identified above that operate as barriers to the discovery of the relative importance of multiple entangled con- tributinc factors

Unfortunately the rules of correct causal inference even if followed are not sufficient to support the conclusion that any set of hypothesized sources of the Cold Wars end is valid Simply put there is no mechanical procedure that assures any fool of making correct inferences if only the rules are obeyed (Zelditch 1971269) For now the most for which the next generation of Cold War analysts can hope are contingent accounts based on a partial explanatory theory Such a theory would specify the highest presumed correlates of the Cold Wars end the conditions under which the relationships held and an explanation as to why the relationships are postulated to have materialized

As coroners probe more deeply into this web of interdependent causes fraught with a high degree of indeterminacy they will be well served if they begin with an attempt to identify and differentiate necessary and sufficient conditions In this regard classification of the causal factors may not be as ambiguous as we might imagine Contrary to structural accounts that focus on the circumstances surrounding the Soviet Unions deliberate retreat it is reasonable to assume that states are information processors and that such processing depends heavily on decision makers prior beliefs (Taber 1992) This assertion puts leaders and their perceptions center stage It invites the proposition that a necessary (if not sufficient) determinant of the Cold Wars end was what Soviet leaders believed Their motives convictions and assessments led them to conclude that a new radically different path was needed We are primarily studying people and their beliefs and only secondarily the conditions and background factors such as Reagans military buildup that influenced Soviet reformers thinking and inspired their decisions In short the choices made by Soviet leaders were the necessary and perhaps even the sufficient conditions for the Cold Wars end without which that outcome would never have occurred There is much evidence that suggests that Soviet leaders perceptions were very important in shaping Soviet foreign policy (see Hermann 1980 Herrmann 1985 and 1986 Lebow and Stein 1994 Stewart Hermann and Hermann 1989)

Several analytic prescriptions follow from this premise This approach to

34 Houl Dzd the Cold War Die

theory-building suggests that the most productive way of getting at the origins of the Cold Wars death is by confronting the stubborn and massive fact that the Cold War ended in large measure because Mikhail Gorbachev and his reform-minded supporters willed it (Bundy 1990 Kaiser 1992 Kanet 1989 Oberdorfer 1991a) It was how they perceived and responded to developments in their nations domestic and international environment that ultimatelv mat- tered-that led these leaders to recognize that a policy window (Evangelista 1991281) had opened and had enabled them to perceive advantages in de- Darting from their countrvs traditional course This assertion means that if we u

want to uncover the reasons for the Cold Wars death we need to understand first how top-level decision makers in the Soviet Union interpreted the contra- dictory signals from the rest of the world and from their domestic environment We need to understand how those ~ e r c e ~ t i o n s in turn stimulated their decision to embark on an entirely new course with consequences perhaps largely unanticipated and unintended by those who courageously pushed the reforms Keep in mind that communism did not just fade away it was finished off [in the wake of the failed August 1991 coup detat] in a countercoup by Yeltsin and the democrats who exploited the Soviet governments botched putsch against its president to take power themselves and suppress the Party (Malia 1993 18)

Note this wav of ex~la in inc the demise of the Cold War is at odds with u

political realists approach to the task of understanding the shift in Soviet policies T o them the nature of the international system and the interactions among the most ~ower fu l states in it are fundamental-indeed this information is almost all one really needs to know to account for the kinds of policies that states undertake States they maintain are unitary actors who respond primarily to changes in their external environments What happens internally to the state or in the minds of its leaders is relativelv immaterial inasmuch as it is determined by the systems structure and the kinds of actions that other states direct toward it alongside the relative capabilities of those states This approach to explaining the Cold Wars end is also at odds with the variant of liberal theory that assumes structural conditions in the international system writ large shape the response of states and their leaders within it This structural liberal approach is illustrated by a German expert (Haftendorn 1992498) who argues that the Cold Wars disappearance came about because

increasing international interdependence changed the role o f the state and its autonomy [The state] ceased to be the sole international actor and even more so a unitary actor The flow o f goods persons and information permeated national boundaries and had an impact on individual citizens in national societies An important role in this process Lvas played by the CSCE and the Helsinki Charter ~ e h o v i n ~ some o f the barriers that had prevented a free movement o f men and ideas or at least challenging Soviet and east central European efforts to maintain them the central control o f Communist regimes gradually eroded the mismanagement o f their economies became obvious and their legitimacy collapsed

As important as the external environment may be as a source for a countrys foreign policy change this perception can easily lead neorealist and neoliberal structural analysts to exaggerate the potency of systemic influences Circum- stances are seldom as we see them or imagine them to be perceived by those whose behavior we are studying nor do they dictate the choices observed External factors alone do not determine how states act even if they limit the range of viable choice and serve as a stimulus for modifying core foreign policy assumptions when national officials believe an accommodation to perceived new realities is required The source for change ultimately resides in how leaders uieul their external environment and their nations interests in it Hence rather

CHAKLESM KEGLEYJR 35

than assuming that the Wests strategies capabilities and alliances dictated Soviet behavior it is probably more accurate to assume that how Soviet leaders themselves took these into account to the extent that they did exerted a decisive causal impact Here we recommend following Arnold Wolfers (196242) who counseled that in studying policy changes

Factors external to the actor can become determinants only as they affect the mind the heart and the ill o f the decision-maker A human decision to act in a specific way necessarily represents the last link in the chain o f antecedents o f any act o f policy A geographical set o f conditions for instance can affect the behavior o f a nation only as specific persons perceive and interpret these conditions

T h e careful reader will observe that putting emphasis on the people who engineer changes in international relations is to argue that macro changes result from micro decisions and their aggregation Individuals do sometimes make a difference in changing the course of world history structural realism and world- system liberalism to the contrary T o proceed from the belief that with respect to the Cold Wars end this influence was especially powerful is to challenge the belief that the systems structure matters most Betting on individual over international sources of communisms collapse is to accept the premise that rapidly changing factors are relatively more potent than slow moving ones such as the largely static o r invariant international system Observe how the positions of the leaders most instrumental in these revolutionary changes Gorbachev and Rea- gan shifted more dramatically than did the environment in which they acted Ergo it seems reasonable to assign their views and thinking relatively greater weight in accounting for the Cold Wars end

This premise instructs analysts of the Cold Wars end to inquire how those in the Kremlin and Eastern Europe responsible for engineering the repudiation of communism and accommodation with the West themselves weighed the relative potency of these various influences on their decisions T o what extent did they perceive each of the independent factors that various theorists cite as importani to their calculations he best way to discover the answer may simply be to ask them (if we can count on their candor and objectivity) This is what Oberdorfer (1991b) Beschloss and Talbott (1992) and Remnick (1993b) did in their extensive interviews with leading officials whose decisions led to this dramatic turn in historv T o validate the im~ressions gained from elite and specialized interviews and from memoirs written for public consumption (Shultz 1993 Ligachev 1993) we might also analyze the content of varied accounts recorded by participant-observers in the decision process supplemented with the insights contained in the secondary interpretations of journalists and historians

If we are ever to reconstruct the wath to the Cold Wars end and sort out the relative validity of rival theories concerning the impact of its many discrete contributing causes we will need to map the cognitive terrain of the actors in the process first In this way we could describe the decision calculus of those who orchestrated the Cold Wars end and trace the balance betlveen opportunity and willingness (hlost and Starr 198923-46) in these policymakers con- ceptualizations of the structural possibilities of their environments and their decision structures From these data we could estimate the accuracy of their images And the images themselves could be placed into a dynamic process model that visualizes the contributing factors colliding and influencing one another at certain points and not at others with some factors moving together but not affecting one another and other factors in constant interaction Such a map of the conceptual terrain would chart the ways in which the influences identified


in Table 1 and those posited by realists from the right were perceived by Soviet leaders in the flow of changing circumstances as the Cold War perished

In the meantime we must treat as premature and unwarranted the simplistic accounts of the causes of the Cold Wars end whether they be anchored in realism and neorealism or in the recent wave of neoliberal theorizing in international relations Studies of the Cold Wars death do not emanate from well- formulated causal theories that offer an account of how one change led to the others or that permit us to rule out the effects of intervening variables which can easily obscure recognition of true linkages The conclusions posing as findings in the accounts under review here cannot be regarded as conclusive for they do not control for the influence of confounding variables or present a convincing reason why other potentially potent factors can be dismissed (held constant)

When it comes to a phenomenon as complex as the roots of the Cold Wars collapse the multiple determinants cannot convincingly be eliminated by the assumption that all other things were equal In all probability they were not equal there is every reason to suspect that if examined they displayed great variation and many made a vital contribution The Soviet leaders loss of faith in the belief that communisms bureaucratically centralized system represented the vanguard of the future may thus have had much to d o with how irrelevant they came to see the correlation of forces in the strategic balance of military power Until we can more meaningfully cut into the causal chain by taking into account the effects of these kinds of intervening variables we are well-advised not to regard ideologically inspired causal theories as credible Students of history must be epistemologically sensitive to the principle that diametrically opposed yet equally logical versions of events can be construed from the same facts when proceeding from different premises and values Uacobson 1993248)

Although global conditions have changed now that the Cold Wars bipolar competition has disappeared we face the prospect that foreign policies based on ingrained practices and unwarranted assumptions will command a following If the lessons of history that we extract are mistaken we are not likely to truly move beyond the Cold War and the thinking that led to its protracted duration What is needed is some new imaginative thinking and not a mere projection of yesterdays role and policy (Kristol 1990A6) Our need for better understanding of the determinants of the Cold Wars end has increased not declined The autopsy has just begun The principles of social science caution would-be coroners not to be satisfied with the initial cursory results

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Department of Goz~ernment and Internatzonal Studzes

Chzz~ersztj of South Carolzna

This review examines a number of the factors currently advanced to explain why the Cold War died It focuses first on the interpretations posed by political realists from the right because they have received such widespread publicity and because they illustrate the logical and empirical limitations of premature conclusions about the causes of the Cold Wars death This discussion is follolved by a description of possible rival causes T h e review ends with a consideration of the principles of inquiry social science methodology advances and suggests ten guidelines for distinguishing between truth and illusion fact and fantasy

Since the advent of the Cold War policymakers and diplomatic historians have sought unsuccessfull) to arrive at a consensus regarding its origins and the determinants of its evolutionara course Now that to the s u r ~ r i s e of nearlv everjone the Cold War has abkpt l ) ended debate has shifted lfrom animated disputes about the causes of its birth to equall) animated disagreements about the causes of its death

One might initially expect this new debate to continue for many years because the sources of the Cold Wars expiration seem no less elusive or controversial than the sources of its creation But to some there is no need to debate further what has died with the end of the Cold War or what has killed it A number of observers are already convinced that the) have the correct answers and ac- cordingl) that there is little need to suspend judgment or await the construction of a more compelling and cogent explanation T o them the facts are self- evident

Unfortunately man) of the lessons most easily drawn from recent events rest on weak logical and empirical foundations Even if later post-mortems prove these interpretations to be false their premature acceptance could lend credence to a number of ill-founded polic) prescriptions aimed at extending the prevailing great-power long peace (Gaddis 199 1) be) ond the twilight of the twentieth centur) T o separate fact from fiction we need to question these rather recklessl)

The material reviewed here represents what was available on this topic to the author through mid-September 1993 The author would like to acknowledge the comments and criticisms proided on earlier versions of this manuscript by Steven Chan Pamela R Howard Steven I Hook Barrv B Hughes John F Kegley Shannon Lindsey Blanton Gregorb A Raymond Harvey Starr and especially hlargaret G Hermann None of these of course are to be burdened with responsibilit~es for the presentation that follo~vs

1994 The hlershon Center at the Ohio State Universirv Published bv Blackvell Publishers 238 Main Street Cambridge h1A 02142 USA and 108 Covle Road Oxford OX4 IJF UK





























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Charles W. Kegley How did the Cold War died.pdf

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