“In January 1977, I visited Ronald Reagan in Los Angeles. During our four-hour conversation, he said many memorable things, but none more significant than this. ‘My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic,’ he said. ‘It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?’ One had never heard such words from the lips of a major political figure; until then, we had thought only in terms of managing the relationship with the Soviet Union.”
– Richard V. Allen, “The Man Who Won the Cold War,” January 30, 2000

Donald J. Trump is to George W. Bush as Ronald Reagan was to Richard Nixon, to a degree. Nixon and Bush did what they thought was best for our country, as did Reagan and as Trump has done from his first day in office. However, these men’s choices of foreign policy sets were informed by different view of America and of America’s adversaries. Bush and Nixon saw a very long struggle, while Reagan and Trump believed in America’s ability to win, to actually defeat her enemies. At the same time, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon operated with very different views of the world around them, so the comparison among the four Republican presidents is not so simple. Indeed, Nixon, Reagan, and Trump all share a steel-willed focus in foreign policy that Bush the Younger, like Bush the Elder, lacked.

George W. Bush and Richard Nixon

2000-2008 was a very different time than 1968-1974. The late 1960s and the 1970s were marked by a pessimistic view of America and the West versus the Soviet Union and the East. Indeed, it was fashionable to suggest that the best we could hope for was a “third way,” a softer northern European style of socialism brought about at the ballot box. We had failed to outright win a war since 1945 and our economic system seemed to be failing, with our vaunted heavy industrial heartland, the arsenal of democracy, turning into the “Rust Belt.” The American military had lost a decade of heavy forces equipment modernization as it focused on the dismounted infantry threat of Vietnamese communist forces. In 1973, Arab oil producing states showed they had us over a barrel.

The apparent relative trajectories of the Soviet Union and the United States at least coincided with the U.S. growing government and multiplying regulations, while the Soviets, for a few years in the 1960s, made some modest reforms, loosening Moscow’s control of bits of the Soviet economy. In this context, it made sense for a strong anti-communist like Nixon to do a deal with the Chinese Communist Party, to split Moscow and Beijing and force the Russians to think about putting some divisions on their south-eastern border, thousands of miles from the Fulda Gap. Nixon believed, like the whole national security establishment, that this Cold War had no short term solution.

Tragically, the anti-communist Nixon chose the larger Chinese communist entity over the Chinese nationalist entity, the Republic of China. The ROC, after resisting communist subversion for decades, developed a population that learned the habits of self-government, culminating in a real competitive party system democracy around 2000. Today, the Communist China that was supposed to distract and weaken the Soviet superpower, is postured to again become the Middle Kingdom, the world’s superpower. The existence of smaller democratic ethnically Chinese polities on its periphery threatens the narrative that Chinese people naturally want to be ruled by a strong central government located in Peking/Beijing.

Americans rang in 2000 with no apparent credible enemies on the world stage. We were supposedly at the end of history and liberal democracy was surely what everyone wanted. OPEC had lost its ability to hold together and impose embargos or even to fix oil prices. Never mind the Rust Belt, we had all the cool kids of Silicon Valley and Redmond, Washington. The democratization of knowledge meant all might share in the new information economy, even if the dotcom bubble was deflating a bit.

In this context, President George W. Bush came to the conclusion that we could prevail, but only in the long run, against a threat that was not a traditional military adversary. Consider his 2005 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy.

President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy

Thank you for the warm welcome. I’m honored once again to be with the supporters of the National Endowment for Democracy. Since the day President Ronald Reagan set out the vision for this Endowment, the world has seen the swiftest advance of democratic institutions in history. And Americans are proud to have played our role in this great story.

Our nation stood guard on tense borders; we spoke for the rights of dissidents and the hopes of exile; we aided the rise of new democracies on the ruins of tyranny. And all the cost and sacrifice of that struggle has been worth it, because, from Latin America to Europe to Asia, we’ve gained the peace that freedom brings.

In this new century, freedom is once again assaulted by enemies determined to roll back generations of democratic progress. Once again, we’re responding to a global campaign of fear with a global campaign of freedom. And once again, we will see freedom’s victory.

[. . .]

Recently our country observed the fourth anniversary of a great evil, and looked back on a great turning point in our history. We still remember a proud city covered in smoke and ashes, a fire across the Potomac, and passengers who spent their final moments on Earth fighting the enemy. We still remember the men who rejoiced in every death, and Americans in uniform rising to duty. And we remember the calling that came to us on that day, and continues to this hour: We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire, or rest, until the war on terror is won. (Applause.)

[. . .]

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus — and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.

[. . .]

As Americans, we believe that people everywhere — everywhere — prefer freedom to slavery, and that liberty, once chosen, improves the lives of all. And so we’re confident, as our coalition and the Iraqi people each do their part, Iraqi democracy will succeed.

[. . .]

The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is a difficult and long-term project, yet there’s no alternative to it. Our future and the future of that region are linked. If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery, while radicals stir the resentments of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger, and for our generation and the next. If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and by their participation as free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow, and eventually end. By standing for the hope and freedom of others, we make our own freedom more secure.

Yet, President George W. Bush appeased the radicals’ backers from the earliest days in September 2001, while the smoke of the fallen twin towers still rose from New York City. He did to Muslims what he accused others of doing to our largest ethic minorities, subjecting them to the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” He refused to address the leaders of Middle Eastern countries as responsible and capable adults in charge of adult populations. Instead, he gave cover to the radicals’ project in our own country by adopting their line that it was Muslims who chose the religious-political statement of the veil and beards who were in danger of oppression by ignorant Americans. These were his words on September 17, 2001:

“Islam is Peace” Says President

Remarks by the President at Islamic Center of Washington, D.C.

Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We’ve just had a — wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday’s attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens.

These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that.

[. . .]

America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.

Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear cover must be not intimidated in America. That’s not the America I know. That’s not the America I value.

I’ve been told that some fear to leave; some don’t want to go shopping for their families; some don’t want to go about their ordinary daily routines because, by wearing cover, they’re afraid they’ll be intimidated. That should not and that will not stand in America.

We have been told repeatedly, including by Bush the Younger, that he has been quite the reader of important books. He shares this trait with James Mattis. As in the case of Mattis, Bush proves that reading does not necessarily impart wisdom. It may just confirm fashionable elite notions. President George W. Bush swallowed the dream peddled by a former Soviet dissenter, Natan Sharansky, in The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror. It was not a taste for democracy in Russia or the rest of the Soviet Union that caused the collapse of the Russian Empire in its Soviet phase. Nor has freedom overcome tyranny and terror in Russia, mainland China, or in the Middle East. Yet, President Bush touted The Case for Democracy.

Contrary to George W. Bush’s fervent wishes, and assertions from the bully pulpit of the presidency, neither the Iraqis nor the Afghans, let alone the Egyptians or the Turks, have chosen liberal democracy and tolerance for religious and ethnic minorities. Far from it. Just as President Reagan did not reap the harvest of a crop sown by Nixon, let alone Carter, so President Trump is not now reaping the harvest of a crop sown by Bush the Younger, let alone Obama.

Reagan and Trump

While we all, especially on Ricochet, remember Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech, penned by Peter Robinson, that was the culmination of other important speeches and actions along the way. In the first year of his presidency, President Reagan gave a powerful 1981 Christmas Eve Address. In it he called out the Polish puppet regime and their masters in Moscow for brutally oppressing the workers, who had formed their own trade union. This laid bare the lie of socialists being for the workers. Reagan not only used rhetoric, he also imposed heavy economic and diplomatic movement sanctions against the Polish communist leaders.

Two years later, as his economic policies were becoming effective and his defense rebuilding plans were being funded, President Reagan gave the 1983 “Evil Empire” speechto a large body of American evangelicals. His warning about the left’s attempt to lull evangelicals into equivocation are just as relevant today.

Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida

March 8, 1983

[. . .]

Explaining the inalienable rights of men, Jefferson said, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” And it was George Washington who said that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

[. . .]

Well, I’m pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good. Only through your work and prayers and those of millions of others can we hope to survive this perilous century and keep alive this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.

I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities — the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.

. . . I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

I ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold your support for our efforts, this administration’s efforts, to keep America strong and free, while we negotiate real and verifiable reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals and one day, with God’s help, their total elimination.

While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.

Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western World can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength. . . . But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary. . . .”

Notice the stark difference between Bush’s view of the world and Reagan’s. Freedom, for Bush, is a natural positive impulse in humanity, while Reagan grounds freedom in godly morality. Reagan’s is the view of the men who drafted and ratified the constitution of the United States, a belief that men are imperfect and, in themselves, not perfectible. Freedom, in itself, leads to mob rule and tyrants, not liberal democracy.

Peter Robinson has recounted the enormous struggle by the whole foreign policy establishment against President Reagan’s vision and his intent to directly call the latest Soviet leader’s “openness” bluff. Reagan was not for turning, anymore than his friend, Prime Minister Thatcher. While he left office shortly before the wall came down, Reagan left the Soviet empire a dead man walking. He did so by consistently pursuing a policy radically different from the institutionalized elite wisdom.

In 2019, a Dallas Morning News column made the case for linking Reagan and Trump:

In 1977, three years before winning the presidency, Reagan told his strategy to Richard V. Allen, who went on to became his first national security adviser. As Allen recounted in an article published in 2000 by the Hoover Digest, Reagan warned that because his strategy was simple, some would call it simplistic. Then he said: “It is this: We win and they lose.”

[. . .]

In 1983, Reagan gave his famous “evil empire” speech, in which he spelled out that the struggle between the U.S. and the USSR was not a disagreement between equals but a contest between “good and evil.” Among America’s policy elite, Reagan was widely condemned at the time as a warmonger, a crazy Hollywood actor trying to insert religious views of morality into politics. The late historian Henry Steele Commager denounced Reagan’s remarks as “The worst presidential speech in American history.” Reagan stuck to his strategy, rebuilt the U.S. military and effectively challenged the Soviet Union, with its rotting communist economy, to an arms race it could not win.

[. . .]

Replicating such victories today is anything but easy. America is much absorbed in its own domestic quarrels. But under President Donald Trump, America has at least begun the vital project of rebuilding its military, and for the first time in generations has been pushing back against China’s increasingly predatory and dangerous tyranny — and not only on crooked trade practices. On Oct. 30, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo gave a speech in which he called out China’s ruling Communist Party as “a Marxist-Leninist Party focused on struggle and international domination.” Pompeo went on to warn that China’s regime is offering to both its own people and the world a form of governance “in which a Leninist Party rules and everyone must think and act according to the will of the Communist elites.”

What to do about this? For anyone — whether Trump or his critics — who aims to protect America from the totalitarian perils now amplifying in the 21st century, it’s worth recalling the guiding strategy with which Reagan took down the worst threat of his own time: We win, they lose.

President Trump has stunned the world with similarly determined and consistent foreign policy vision. The peace treaties reaped this September are the fruit of seeds planted in 2017. President Trump fundamentally rejected the bipartisan institutionalized expert wisdom. Everyone knew that you just had to make Israel do a deal, any deal, that would make the Palestinians happy. Without that, there just could not be peace in the Middle East. So every administration tried and failed.

President Trump took a very different approach from the outset. He treated the leaders and nations of the Middle East as fully competent and self-interested. His words, which were considered dangerous by the establishment, actually empowered those who wanted to reject the radicals. President Trump’s Riyadh speech was on his first foreign policy tour, showing how much this mattered to him.

I stand before you as a representative of the American People, to deliver a message of friendship and hope. That is why I chose to make my first foreign visit a trip to the heart of the Muslim world, to the nation that serves as custodian of the two holiest sites in the Islamic Faith.

[. . .]

America is a sovereign nation and our first priority is always the safety and security of our citizens. We are not here to lecture—we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership – based on shared interests and values – to pursue a better future for us all.

[. . .]

Terrorism has spread across the world. But the path to peace begins right here, on this ancient soil, in this sacred land.

America is prepared to stand with you – in pursuit of shared interests and common security.

But the nations of the Middle East cannot wait for American power to crush this enemy for them. The nations of the Middle East will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves, for their countries, and for their children.

It is a choice between two futures – and it is a choice America CANNOT make for you.

A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship. DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities. DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.

President Trump then used all the tools of national power in order to achieve these ends. He unleashed our military to crush ISIS, and used targeted strikes to kill the Iranian regime’s terror master. He offered the Palestinians deals that no rational person could reject. He moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. He maximized financial pain against supporters of the Iranian regime. All of this, except perhaps the strong move against ISIS, was met with great hand-wringing and bureaucratic resistance. Still, Trump, like Reagan before him, persisted.

Now, the Palestinian leaders have no leverage. Now the Khomeinist regime faces strengthening and more united neighbors, with fewer opportunities for mischief. Now there is a path forward for nations to engage in peaceful trade, increasing mutual interests between their peoples. President Trump’s different approach to foreign policy also yielded normalization of trade between Kosovo, with its Muslim population, and Orthodox Christian Serbia. His people simply sought common ground between parties and talked about the nations’ interests aside from the long-standing grievances.

Here is President Trump’s explanation of the Middle East deals, during his September 16 press briefing:

And I think you’re going to have a whole level of peace without blood all over the sand. Nobody was shot. Nobody was killed. We killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East. It’s all — it’s been — it’s — I always say, it’s — it’s the bloodiest sand anywhere in the world, and it didn’t have to be that way. The single-worst decision our country ever made was to go into the Middle East. Not only the millions of people killed — and I include people on both sides. You know, some people say, “Oh, you shouldn’t say that.” I’ll say it: “on both sides.” Such a horrible thing was done. Such a horrible mistake was made.

We’re doing this a different way. So we have those two countries. We have at least five that we’re negotiating with right now. And, you know, you can only negotiate with so many. I think they’re all going to come in.

I think, ultimately, the Palestinians are going to come in. These are all the people that are funding them. You know, I stopped funding the Palestinians fairly early on, because they were saying bad things about our country. I said, “Well, you mean we’re giving them $750 million a year, and they’re saying all bad things about our country?” So I stopped funding them very early on. But they get funded by other very rich countries. To them, it’s like a speck; it’s nothing. But they get funded.

And — but I think now that these countries — these very rich countries are part of the deal, and they’re going — you’ll see, over the next fairly short period of time, other countries will come in. I think Saudi Arabia, ultimately, will come in too. I think getting Saudi Arabia will be great. But I think Saudi Arabia — this is my feeling; it’s not based on knowledge, other than a couple of conversations I had with the king. But Saudi Arabia, I think, will be coming in too.

And you’ll end up with peace in the Middle East. And nobody thought it could be done, and nobody thought it could be done this way.

I went to some very smart people. I went to some people in the Middle East, and they said, “You’ll never be able to do it. It’s not possible to make peace.” Well, now they’re saying to me, “Nobody ever thought of doing this.” They all thought you make the deal first with the Palestinians; it had to be that way.

And I will say the resistance was: Some countries didn’t want to do it unless the Palestinians were there first. That was just a psychological thing more than anything else, but they were wrong. Those coun- — the people — our great representatives that have been doing this for 35 years that were telling me how to do it — but they all failed. They were Clinton’s administration, they were in Bush, they were in Obama — all these great, brilliant people. They’re all telling me how to do it, and I said, “They’re wrong.” And I guess I was right. And —

Q Okay, but on this vaccine (inaudible) —

THE PRESIDENT: And when you see — let me ju- — well, let’s talk — finish this. When you see the countries that will be coming — a very short period of time; not talking in a long period of time — all of the countries that will be coming in, just like you saw — Bahrain yesterday, and UAE, and I can think of, I mean, at least five that are going to be quick and easy. Others will be quick and easy also, once the five comes — come in.

So you’re going to have something; you’re going to peace in the Middle East. And we want to get out, you know. We want to — our soldiers are largely coming home. I said they’re — the endless wars; the ridiculous, endless wars.

And I will say this: If I didn’t withdraw our country from that horrible Iran nuclear deal — that horrible, stupid deal, where President Obama paid $150 billion for nothing and gave $1.8 billion in cash — $1.8 billion. You know what that is? $1.8 billion in cash. That’s more impressive than the $150 billion paid normally.

But he gave all this money, all of this — all of these chips that we had. We had these chips, and he gave them all away. And we got nothing. And, you know, it was a short-term deal. It would be practically expiring now. It would be practically — it starts to expire, actually, right now. But it would practically be —

And there is no way we will let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Just remember that. There’s no way that’s going to happen.