Containment for real

Containment for Real

MAX LERNER, one of the first columnists to predict Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory, and one of the shrewdest observers of his Administration, has taken a crack at defining the Reagan Doctrine. Not surprisingly, he has come up with something far more concrete and realistic than, say, Charles Krauthammer.

Lerner discerns seven elements. 1) Supporting freedom-fighters in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua; 2) fighting terrorists with deeds as well as words; 3) limiting Soviet diplomatic spying; 4) publicizing Soviet treaty violations; 5) proposing, and sticking with, SDI; 6) insisting on real arms reductions, as opposed to specious "arms-control" limits; and 7) refusing to lure Gorbachev to the summit table with prior concessions. "Peace," Lerner concludes his summary, "has a price tag. You have to strain and sweat for it, work for a strong economy, use your advanced defense technology, and keep the Western alliance firm."

The Reagan Doctrine, as Lerner limns it, is indeed a new thing: containment practiced by tenacious anti-Communists. The operative word is "tenacious." The original theorists of containment were anti-Communists, but they were also meliorists. George Kennan, at the time of his "Mr. X" article, looked forward to the day, not far distant, when the Soviets would become "bored" with the practices of the police state. In the event, it was the containers who became bored, with their own doctrine; in his Memoirs, Kennan compares his early, historic, anti-Soviet "long telegram," deprecatingly, to a primer of the DAR.

There are elements of the Reagan Doctrine that have been insufficiently pursued. The freedom-fighters get weapons, though not in decisive quantities. SDI proceeds under the rubric of research, without a commitment to deploy. But it is reasonable to hope for follow-through, since the Reaganites, unlike the Kennanoids, know that the Soviets haven't changed.

COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.
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