How Reagan Won the Cold War

TEN years ago Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and said, “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Not long afterward, the wall came tumbling down and the most formidable empire in world history collapsed so fast that, in Vaclav Havel’s words, “we had no time even to be astonished.”

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the most ambitious political and social experiment of the modern era ended in failure, and the supreme political drama of the twentieth century-the conflict between the free West and the totalitarian East—came to an end. What will probably prove to be the most important historical event of our lifetimes has already occurred.

About the Author

Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D’Souza is a writer, scholar, and public intellectual. He is the author of America: Imagine A World Without Her, in which he explores the landscape of a world in which America had lost the Revolutionary War.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

Charles Krauthammer

Henry Kissinger

TEN years ago Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and said, “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Not long afterward, the wall came tumbling down and the most formidable empire in world history collapsed so fast that, in Vaclav Havel’s words, “we had no time even to be astonished.”

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the most ambitious political and social experiment of the modern era ended in failure, and the supreme political drama of the twentieth century-the conflict between the free West and the totalitarian East—came to an end. What will probably prove to be the most important historical event of our lifetimes has already occurred.

About the Author

Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D’Souza is a writer, scholar, and public intellectual. He is the author of America: Imagine A World Without Her, in which he explores the landscape of a world in which America had lost the Revolutionary War.