A reader writes:
Carter was a hawk, but he wasn’t a traditional one because realists and other practitioners of realpolitick don‚Äôt sufficiently appreciate the importance of political legitimacy. Playing the ‘freedom’ card, if you will, undermined the raison d’etre of the Soviet Union by stating the simple truth ‚Äì that a system that can only survive through massive applications of violence against its own people is a system destined for the dustbin of history. Human rights was a way to highlight the fear and moral cowardice of the communist dictatorships and so destroy the implicit public support that underpinned and propped up communism in a way that no gun, bomb, or army could ever defend against. The Soviet Union and its empire collapsed not because we pushed it over, but because no one wanted to keep it propped up.
Sure, Carter laid the foundation for the future Reagan military buildup and did things like aiding the Afghan resistance, but the strongest blow ever dealt to Soviet communism was the one that pointed out what an evil, corrupt, and bankrupt system it had become. Stalin once quipped, ‚Äòhow many divisions has the Pope?‚Äô That Stalin’s heirs are now footnotes and Catholicism is alive and well in Poland goes to show just how much Stalin misunderstood the importance of political legitimacy in a contest like the Cold War. Ideas are weapons too, often the most important ones.
That goes for the current war as well. It will be won – or lost – in people’s minds.
The Dish 