Remarks By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. At The Rutgers University Conference On ‘The Arms Race And The End Of The Cold War’

New Brunswick, New Jersey
13 December 1997

I think I can best set the stage for my remarks about arms control during the Reagan years by
sharing with you some of my reactions to what I have heard to this point in our conference.

When I agreed to speak at this event, I expected to hear President Reagan’s contribution to the
unraveling of the Soviet Union discounted. What I frankly was unprepared for was the contempt
expressed for him and his Administration, bordering upon a certain wistfulness for the old USSR.

If it seems an overstatement to suggest on the part of some of our participants a sense of regret at
the way things worked out, consider a few illustrative examples of the comments made yesterday:

• We have been told that the United States unfairly demonizes its adversaries like Brezhnev,
  Castro and Saddam Hussein as odious individuals presiding over dangerous systems.
• We have been told that decisions about restoring America’s military strength were capriciously
  made during the Reagan Administration and not part of an overall strategic approach, let alone
  an important ingredient in forcing the collapse of the Soviet empire.
• We have been assured that it was detente that brought about changes in the USSR, not
  Reagan’s policy of confrontation and resistance.
• We have heard the United States criticized for advancing positions in arms control negotiations
  that were advantageous to the United States.
• We have been told that the USSR’s collapse was inevitable once someone like Gorbachev —
  who we are encouraged to believe rejected Marxism-Leninism — came to the fore.

The Reagan Contribution

I disagree with these statements with every fiber in my being. So did President Reagan, I believe,
as was evident in the approach toward the Soviet Union — including his arms control policies —
laid out early in his Administration, in which I was privileged to serve for four-and-a-half years.

• President Reagan rejected what Bud McFarlane described as the “moral equivalence” evident
  in these and many of the other comments made yesterday. In fact, even the term “arms race”
  implies such a sentiment and suggests that Soviet military programs were unrelated to an
  aggressive ideology and, at worst, simply a response to American actions.

As Peter Schwiezer has brilliantly documented in his book Victory, the Reagan strategy
of destroying what the President correctly called the “Evil Empire” was formally
spelled out in National Security Decision Documents dating from the early months of
the first term. It was a multifaceted strategy, involving efforts to deny the USSR the
life support that detente had made possible — life support that perpetuated that
despicable system, and that would have continued to do so if unchecked.

Terminating the second-strand of the Siberian gas pipeline and denying Moscow
technology and financial resources needed to sustain its military-industrial
complex were critical ingredients in this strategy.

• So was the determination to restore America’s military strength — strength that had been
  allowed to erode under both Republican and Democratic administrations in the 1970s.
• A new approach to arms control was also an important ingredient in the strategy laid down
  in the early years of the Reagan Administration. President Reagan, who had campaigned
  against the SALT II Treaty, wanted no part of unverifiable, inequitable arms control
  agreements.

He felt it was his responsibility to advance positions that were favorable to the United
States, not to view arms control as an exercise in noblesse oblige. If they were
unacceptable to the Soviets, so be it. We would take the steps necessary to provide for
our security in other ways.

A singularly significant example of this was the INF missile deployment. I
happen to believe that President Reagan’s determination to press forward with
that initiative unless the Soviets met our arms control terms — and his success in
sustaining the alliance commitment to see the deployments through in the face of
unprecedented Soviet intimidation and agitation — was a watershed moment. I
think there is no doubt that that display of solidarity and leadership and the
enhanced military power it provided contributed to the acceleration of the
USSR’s demise.

Another example was the Strategic Defense Initiative. President Reagan was
genuinely convinced that it was both moral and strategically imperative to find an
alternative to the mutual suicide pact known as MAD as a basis for American
security. When given the chance, he refused to give up that option — even when a
prospect with which he was personally enamored, namely eliminating U.S. and
Soviet nuclear forces, was dangled before him. Like the INF deployment,
America’s commitment to pursue a technological end-run on the Soviets, one that
it could not compete with in terms either of offensive or defensive weapons, did
impose intolerable stresses upon their system.

• President Reagan also exhibited a concern early on about the Soviet Union’s systematic non-compliance with its arms control commitments. We talked briefly yesterday about Moscow’s
  wholesale violation of the ABM Treaty. Unfortunately, this is but one example of a practice
  that characterizes its behavior with respect to every single treaty it has signed.

Le Phénomène Andropov

The cumulative effect of these policies of the first Reagan Administration were, in my judgement,
instrumental in sealing the fate of the Soviet Union. They gave rise to conditions that Andropov
understood required new approaches if Moscow was to obtain renewed access to Western
resources needed to keep the USSR going.

After his demise, his protégé — a far less capable man — tried to implement the Andropov
gameplan of glasnost and perestroika. In Gorbachev’s hands, however, what was meant as a
tactical readjustment in the best tradition of Lenin’s reculer pour mieux sauter set in train the
unraveling of the Soviet system and empire.

Frankly, we are fortunate that Gorbachev was an incompetent Marxist-Leninist and unleashed in
response to external realities and internal dynamics that he could not control without completely
shattering his only hope for preserving the Soviet Union — vast new life-support from the West.

We are fortunate, moreover, that changes in President Reagan’s policies — notably, his willingness
to embark upon less than verifiable new arms control agreements despite Moscow’s uncorrected
violations of previous ones, and his decision to pursue detente anew — came too late to save the
USSR.

Conclusion

In closing, let me add that, while I rejoice in the freedom that has come to many millions of people
as a result of conditions Ronald Reagan did much to engender, even those of us who applaud the
collapse of the Soviet Union must not allow that achievement to obscure a worrying reality:
Russia today continues to pursue many of the programs and policies that gave us concern during
the Cold War — especially in the area of nuclear war-fighting capabilities and other weapons of
mass destruction.

Bud McFarlane called to mind yesterday Harold Brown’s regretful debunking of the “arms race”
paradigm when he said in the late 70s — “When we build, they build; when we stop, they keep
building.” Today, the Kremlin appears to be as committed to the principle of nuclear superiority
as ever. Even though we have essentially stopped, they are continuing both to build nuclear
weapons and modern delivery systems and to invest in hugely expensive defensive capabilities.

It remains to be seen what use the Russians, under this or some future government, decide to
make of such superiority as they are striving for. It will be an incalculably terrible tragedy,
however, if we allow the most important lessons of Ronald Reagan’s presidency to be unlearned — and the opportunity he provided for peace with security to be squandered.

— End of Remarks —