Full Remarks by The Rt. Hon. The Baroness Margaret Thatcher L.G., O.M., F.R.S. Before the Heritage Foundation’s “Leadership for America” Gala

Washington, D.C.
December 12, 1997

‘Courage’

It is a great honour to be asked to be the inaugural speaker of this series of Lectures on the
Principles of Conservatism, organised to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Heritage
Foundation. Heritage has flown the flag for conservatism over this last quarter-century with pride
and distinction. I’ve always considered America fortunate in having an apparently inexhaustible
supply of conservative thinkers prepared to challenge the fashionable liberal consensus. That is a
tribute to the intellectual energy and the taste for debate which are so characteristic of this great
country and which sometimes seem distressingly absent in contemporary Europe. But it is also a
tribute to Heritage (and in particular to Ed Feulner) that these conservative thinkers have been
motivated and sustained in their mission.

It is no less an honour — and, dare I say, still more of a pleasure — to be invited here on the
occasion of the presentation of the Clare Booth Luce award to my old friend Ronald Reagan.

President Reagan is one of the greatest men of our time, and one of the greatest American
Presidents of all time. If that is not fully appreciated today, and sadly it is not, it isn’t really
surprising. After all, so many people have been proved wrong by Ronald Reagan that they simply
daren’t acknowledge his achievement. Forests have already been pulped to print the revisionist
analyses of the eighties. Those who were once so confident of the superiority of the Soviet
system that they advocated appeasement of it now pretend to believe that it was doomed to
inevitable collapse. Tell that to the Russians! The former Soviet ministers didn’t and don’t doubt
the seriousness of the struggle, even if Western liberal commentators do.

No one in the West appreciates all this better — and no one served the President and this country
more loyally — than Cap Weinberger, here to receive the award on Ronald Reagan’s behalf. He
was also a great friend to Britain, above all during the Falklands War. It’s nice to be among
conservatives. It’s still nicer to be among friends.

When The Heritage Foundation asked me to make the virtue of Courage the centrepiece of this
Lecture, I was not displeased. Of the four cardinal virtues — courage, temperance, justice, and
prudence — it is the last — prudence — that the ancient philosophers traditionally placed at the
moral apex. They did so because they understood, quite rightly, that without that practical,
seemingly rather dull virtue, none of the others could be correctly applied. You have to know
when and how to be brave, or self-controlled or fair-minded, in particular situations. Prudence —
or what I would prefer to call a good, hearty helping of common sense — shows the way.

Ronald Reagan

But in my political lifetime I believe that it is fortitude or Courage that we’ve most needed and
often, I fear, most lacked.

Today we are particularly conscious of the Courage of Ronald Reagan. It was easy for his
contemporaries to ignore it: He always seemed so calm and relaxed, with natural charm,
unstudied self-assurance, and unquenchable good humour. He was always ready with just the
right quip — often self-deprecatory, though with a serious purpose — so as to lighten the darkest
moments and give all around him heart. The excellent recent study by Dinesh D’Souza refreshed
my memory about some of these occasions and told me of others which I didn’t previously know.

Right from the beginning, Ronald Reagan set out to challenge everything that the liberal political
elite of America accepted and sought to propagate. They believed that America was doomed to
decline: He believed it was destined for further greatness. They imagined that sooner or later
there would be convergence between the free Western system and the socialist Eastern system,
and that some kind of social democratic outcome was inevitable. He, by contrast, considered that
socialism was a patent failure which should be cast onto the trash heap of history. They thought
that the problem with America was the American people, though they didn’t quite put it like that.
He thought that the problem with America was the American government, and he did put it just
like that.

The political elite were prepared to kowtow to the counterculture that grew up on American
campuses, fed by a mixture of high-brow dogma and low-brow self-indulgence. Governor
Reagan would have none of it and expressed his disdain in his own inimitable fashion. On one
occasion students, chanting outside the Governor’s limousine, held up a placard bearing the
modest inscription, “We Are the Future.” The Governor scribbled down his reply and held it up to
the car window. It read: “I’ll sell my bonds.”

In those days, of course, there were not many people buying bonds in Ronald Reagan. But from
the very first time I met him I felt that I had to invest. I was leader of the Opposition — one of the
most tricky posts in British politics — when Governor Reagan paid me a visit. The impression is
still vivid in my mind: not so vivid that I can remember exactly what he said, only the clarity with
which he set forth his beliefs and the way he put large truths and complex ideas into simple
language.

As soon as I met Governor Reagan, I knew that we were of like mind, and manifestly so did he.
We shared a rather unusual philosophy, and we shared something else rather unusual as well: We
were in politics because we wanted to put our philosophy into practice.

Ronald Reagan’s Achievement

Ronald Reagan has changed America and the world, but the changes he made were to restore
historic conservative values, not to impose artificially constructed ones. Take his economic
policy, for example. It was certainly a very radical thing to do when he removed regulations and
cut taxes and left the Fed to squeeze out inflation by monetary means. Supply side economics,
Reaganomics, Voodoo economics — all these descriptions and mis-descriptions testified to the
perception of what was proposed as something outlandish. But it really wasn’t, and Ronald
Reagan knew it wasn’t.

After all, if you believe that it’s business success that creates prosperity and jobs, you leave
business as free as you possibly can to succeed. If you think that it’s governments–taxing,
spending, regulating, and printing money — that distort the business environment and penalise
success, you stop government doing these things. If, at the deepest level, you have confidence in
the talent and enterprise of your own people, you express that confidence; you give them faith and
hope: Ronald Reagan did all these things — and it worked.

Today’s American prosperity in the late 1990s is the result, above all, of the fundamental shift of
direction President Reagan promoted in the 1980s. Perhaps it’s something of an irony that it’s an
administration of instinctive spenders and regulators that now is reaping much of the political
reward. But we conservatives shouldn’t really be that surprised, for it was the departure from
some of those conservative principles, after Ronald Reagan and I left office, that left conservative
politicians in both our countries out in the cold. One of Thatcher’s iron laws is that conservative
governments which put up taxes lose elections.

It is, however, for fighting and winning the Cold War that Ronald Reagan deserves the most
credit — and credit not just from Americans, but from the rest of what we called in those days the
Free World, and from those in the former communist states who can now breathe the air of
liberty. President Reagan’s “expert critics” used to complain that he didn’t really understand
communism. But he understood it a great deal better than they did. He had seen at first hand its
malevolent influence, under various guises and through various fronts, working by stealth for the
West’s destruction. He had understood that it thrived on the fear, weakness, and spinelessness of
the West’s political class. Because that class itself had so little belief in Western values, it could
hardly conceal a sneaking admiration for those of the Soviet Union. For these people, the retreat
of Western power–from Asia, from Africa, from South America — was the natural way of the
world.

Of course, there were always some honest men struggling to arrest the decline, or at least to
ameliorate its consequences. The doctrine of “containment” was envisaged as a way of
conducting a strategic resistance to communist incursion. Similarly, the doctrine of “détente” also
had its honourable Western advocates — none more so than Henry Kissinger. But the fact
remains that it meant different things to different sides.

For the West, détente signified — as the word itself literally means — an easing in tension between
the two superpowers and two blocs. This made a certain sense at the time, because it reduced the
risk of a nuclear confrontation which Western unpreparedness had brought closer because we had
allowed our conventional defences to run down. But it also threatened to lead us into a fatal trap.
For to the Soviets, détente signified merely the promotion of their goal of world domination while
minimising the risk of direct military confrontation. So under the cloak of wordy communiqués
about peace and understanding, the Soviet Union expanded its nuclear arsenal and its navy,
engaged in continual doctrinal warfare, and subverted states around the globe by means of its own
advisers and the armed forces of its surrogates. There was only one destination to which this path
could lead — that of Western defeat. And that’s where we were heading.

This was a message which few newspapers and commentators wanted to hear. It was at this time
— the mid-1970s — that after one such speech I was generously awarded by the Soviet military
newspaper, Red Star, the soubriquet of the “Iron Lady.”

You might imagine that it would be easier to call for a return to military strength and national
greatness in the United States — a superpower — than in the United Kingdom — a middle ranking
power. But, oddly enough, I doubt it.

America, as I found from my visits in the seventies and early eighties, had suffered a terrible
decline of confidence in its role in the world. This was essentially a psychological crisis, not a
reflection of realities. We now know that the arms build-up by the Soviets at that time was an act
of desperation. The Soviet Union was dangerous — deadly dangerous–but the danger was that
from a wounded predator, not some proud beast of the jungle.

The more intelligent Soviet apparatchiks had grasped that the economic and social system of the
USSR was crumbling. The only chance for the state that had so recently pledged to bury the
West, but which was now being buried by its own cumulative incompetence, was to win an arms
race. It would have to rely for its survival on the ability to terrify its opponents with the same
success as it had terrified its own citizens.

A totally planned society and economy has the ability to concentrate productive capacity on some
fixed objective with a reasonable degree of success, and do it better than liberal democracies. But
totalitarianism can only work like this for a relatively short time, after which the waste,
distortions, and corruption increase intolerably. So the Soviet Union had to aim at global
dominance, and achieve it quickly, because given a free competition between systems no one
would wish to choose that of the Soviets. Their problem was that even though they diverted the
best of their talent and a huge share of their GDP to the military complex, they lacked the moral
and material resources to achieve superiority. That would be apparent as soon as the West found
leaders determined to face them down.

This was what Ronald Reagan, with my enthusiastic support and that of a number of other
leaders, set out as President to do. And he did it on the basis of a well-considered and elaborated
doctrine.

The world has, of course, seen many international doctrines — Monroe, Truman, and Brezhnev
have all made their contributions, some more positive than others. But for my money it is the
Reagan doctrine, spelt out very clearly in the speech he gave to British parliamentarians in the
Palace of Westminster in 1982, that has had the best and greatest impact. This was a rejection of
both containment and détente. It proclaimed that the truce with communism was over. The West
would henceforth regard no area of the world as destined to forego its liberty simply because the
Soviets claimed it to be within their sphere of influence. We would fight a battle of ideas against
communism, and we would give material support to those who fought to recover their nations
from tyranny.

President Reagan could have no illusion about the opposition he would face at home in embarking
on this course: He had, after all, seen these forces weaken the West throughout the seventies. But
he used his inimitable ability to speak to the hearts of the American people and to appeal over the
heads of the cynical, can’t-do elite. He and Cap Weinberger made no secret of the objective:
military superiority. The Soviets understood more quickly than his domestic critics the
seriousness of what was at stake. The Russian rhetoric grew more violent; but an understanding
that the game was up gradually dawned in the recesses of the Politburo.

It is well-known that I encouraged President Reagan to “do business” with President Gorbachev.
I also still give credit to Mr. Gorbachev for introducing freedom of speech and of religion into the
Soviet Union. But let’s be clear: The Soviet power brokers knew that they had to choose a
reformer because they understood that the old strategy of intimidating and subverting would not
work with Ronald Reagan in the White House and — who knows? — even Margaret Thatcher in
10 Downing Street.

The final straw for the Evil Empire was the Strategic Defense Initiative. President Reagan was, I
believe, deliberately and cunningly tempted by the Soviets at Reykjavik. They made ever more
alluring offers to cut their nuclear arsenals, and the President, who was a genuine believer in a
nuclear-weapons-free world (it was one of the few things we disagreed about), thought he was
making progress. There was no mention of SDI, and it appeared that the Soviets had tacitly
accepted that its future was not for negotiation. Then, at the very last moment, they insisted that
SDI be effectively abandoned. The President immediately refused, the talks ended in acrimony,
and in the media he was heavily criticised. But it was on that day, when a lesser man would have
compromised, that he showed his mettle.

As a result of his courage, work on the SDI programme continued and the Soviets understood
that their last gambit had failed. Three years later, when Mr. Gorbachev peacefully allowed
Eastern Europe to slide out of Soviet control, Ronald Reagan’s earlier decision to stand firm was
vindicated. The Soviets at last understood that the best they could hope for was to be allowed to
reform their system, not to impose it on the rest of the world. And, of course, as soon as they
embarked upon serious reform the artificial construct of the USSR, sustained by lies and violence
for more than half a century, imploded with a whimper.

The idea that such achievements were a matter of luck is frankly laughable. Yes: The President
had luck. But he deserved the luck he enjoyed. Fortune favours the brave, the saying runs. As
this hero of our times faces his final and most merciless enemy, he shows the same quiet courage
which allowed him to break the world free of a monstrous creed without a shot being fired.
President Reagan: Your friends salute you!

New Challenges for Old

Democracies, like human beings, have a tendency to relax when the worst is over. Our Western
democracies accordingly relaxed — both at home and abroad — in the period after the fall of the
Berlin Wall.

It was, of course, right that in this period there should be a new look at priorities. The threat
from the Soviet Union was much diminished — both directly in Europe and indirectly in regional
conflicts which they had once exploited.

At least the worst errors of the past were avoided–America stayed militarily committed to
Europe; NATO remained the linchpin of Western security; and in spite of the protectionist
instincts of the European Union, progress continued with reducing barriers to trade. These
elements of continuity were crucial to the relative security and (in spite of the turbulence in the
Far East) the considerable prosperity we enjoy today. These were the positive aspects.

But there are also worrying negative ones. Each will require new acts of political courage to
overcome.

First, lower defence spending in America, Britain, and elsewhere was used not to cut taxes and so
boost prosperity, but rather the so-called Peace Dividend went principally to pay for welfare.
This in turn has harmed our countries both socially and economically, worsening trends which had
already become manifest. Welfare dependency is bad for families and bad for the taxpayer. It
makes it less necessary and less worthwhile to work. The promotion of idleness leads, as it
always does, to the growth of vice, irresponsibility, and crime. The bonds which hold society
together are weakened. The bill — for single mothers, for delinquency, for vandalism — mounts.
In some areas a generation grows up without solid roots or sound role models, without
self-esteem or hope. It is extraordinary what damage is sometimes done in the name of
compassion. The task of reversing the growth of welfare dependency and repairing the structure
of the traditional family is one of the most difficult we in the West face.

Secondly, the post-Cold War slackening of resolve has led to a lack of military preparedness.
Understandably, with the end of the Cold War the sense of omni-Present Danger receded. Less
excusably, the fact that the Soviet Union and its successor states no longer challenged the West’s
very survival led Western countries to behave as if other, new threats could be ignored. Yet the
truth is so obvious that surely only an expert could miss it: There is never a lack of potential
aggressors.

We now have to reassess our defence spending, which has been cut back too far: Still more
significant has been the failure to grasp the vital importance of investment in the very latest
defence technology. The crucial importance of keeping up research and development in defence
is the great lesson of SDI. It is also the lesson — in two respects — of today’s confrontation with
Iraq.

The original defeat of Saddam’s forces was so swift — though sadly not complete — because of
our overwhelming technical superiority. The fact that we are still having to apply constant
pressure and the closest scrutiny to Iraq also bears witness to the lethal capability which science
and technology can place in a dictator’s hands and the enormous difficulty of removing it.
Chemical and biological weapons and the components for nuclear weapons can be all too easily
concealed.

The proliferation of ballistic missile technology also greatly adds to the menace. According to the
Defence Studies Centre at Lancaster University in Britain, 35 non-NATO countries now have
ballistic missiles. Of these the five “rogue states” — Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, and North Korea —
are a particular worry. North Korea has been supplying ballistic missiles to those who can afford
them, and it continues to develop more advanced long-range missiles, with a range of 2,500 to
4,000 miles. According to U.S. sources, all of North-East Asia, South-East Asia, much of the
Pacific, and most of Russia could soon be threatened by these latest North Korean missiles. Once
they are available in the Middle East and North Africa, all the capitals of Europe will be within
target range: And on present trends a direct threat to American shores is likely to mature early in
the next century. Diplomatic pressure to restrict proliferation, though it may be useful, can never
be a sufficient instrument in itself. It is important that the West remain able and willing — and is
known to be able and willing — to take pre-emptive action if that should ultimately become
necessary.

But it is also vital that progress be made towards the construction of an effective global defence
against missile attack. This would be a large and costly venture to which America’s allies must be
prepared to contribute; it would require a rare degree of courageous statesmanship to carry it
through. But it is also difficult to overstate the terrible consequences if we were to fail to take
measures to protect our populations while there is still time to do so.

Thirdly, political courage will be required constantly to restate the case for Western unity under
American leadership. America was left by the end of the Cold War as the effective global power
of last resort, the only superpower. But there was also a widespread reluctance to face up to this
reality. The same mentality which Ronald Reagan had had to overcome was at work. Large
numbers of intellectuals and commentators, uneasy at the consequences of a victory whose causes
they had never properly understood, sought to submerge America and the West in a new,
muddled multilateralism. I suppose it’s not surprising. As Irving Kristol once noted, “No modern
nation has ever constructed a foreign policy that was acceptable to its intellectuals.”

In fact, it is as if some people take a perverse delight in learning the wrong lessons from events. It
was Western unity, under inspiring American leadership, which changed the world. But now that
unity is at risk as the European Union, with apparent encouragement from the United States,
seems bent on becoming a single state with a single defence — a fledgling superpower. Such a
development would not relieve America of obligations; it would merely increase the obstacles to
American policy.

Today’s international policy makers have succumbed to a liberal contagion whose most alarming
symptom is to view any new and artificial structure as preferable to a traditional and tested one.
So they forget that it was powerful nation states, drawing on national loyalties and national
armies, which enforced UN Security Council Resolutions and defeated Iraq in 1991. Their
short-term goal is to subordinate American and other national sovereignties to multilateral
authorities; their long-term goal, one suspects, is to establish the UN as a kind of embryo world
government.

Surely the crisis in the former Yugoslavia should have shown the folly of these illusions. There
the tragic farce of European Union meddling only prolonged the aggression and the United
Nations proved incapable of agreeing on effective action. We are still trying to make the flawed
Dayton Settlement — which neither the EU nor the UN could have brought about — the basis of a
lasting peace in that troubled region. The future there is unpredictable, but one thing I do venture
to predict: The less America leads, and the more authority slips back to unwieldy international
committees and their officials, the more difficulties will arise.

International relations today are in a kind of limbo. Few politicians and diplomats really believe
that any power other than the United States can guarantee the peace or punish aggression. But
neither is there sufficient cohesion in the West to give America the moral and material support she
must have to fulfill that role.

This has to change. America’s duty is to lead: The other Western countries’ duty is to support its
leadership. Different countries will contribute in different ways. Britain is closer to the United
States by culture, language, and history than is any other European country; British public opinion
is therefore readier to back American initiatives; moreover, Britain’s highly professional armed
forces allow us to make a unique practical contribution when the necessity arises. But the
fundamental equation holds good for all of us: Provided Western countries unite under American
leadership, the West will remain the dominant global influence; if we do not, the opportunity for
rogue states and new tyrannical powers to exploit our divisions will increase, and so will the
danger to all.

So the task for conservatives today is to revive a sense of Western identity, unity, and resolve.
The West is after all not just some ephemeral Cold War construct: It is the core of a civilization
which has carried all before it, transforming the outlook and pattern of life of every continent. It
is time to proclaim our beliefs in the wonderful creativity of the human spirit, in the rights of
property and the rule of law, in the extraordinary fecundity of enterprise and trade, and in the
Western cultural heritage without which our liberty would long ago have degenerated into license
or collapsed into tyranny. These are as much the tasks of today as they were of yesterday, as
much the duty of conservative believers now as they were when Ronald Reagan and I refused to
accept the decline of the West as our ineluctable destiny.

As the poet said:

“That which thy fathers bequeathed thee
Earn it anew if thou would’st possess it.”

— End of Remarks —