Armed to Death

Ronald Reagan’s Role in German Reunification

If you ask a German whom to thank for reunifying the nation, they will give you three names: Gorbachev, Gorbachev and Gorbachev. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, former Communist Party Chief and president of the Soviet Union, invented glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction), ended the Cold War, liberated Eastern Europe by distancing himself from the Brezhnev Doctrine (for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) and was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Decade. At least, that is the way Lieschen Müller describes these events in her narrative. To Müller, Gorby is the Soviet Union’s equivalent to Barack Obama.

The fact that Gorbachev was not the driving force, but rather one of those driven, is not mentioned in her narrative. And who would know that better than Gorbachev’s foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze? He has proven to be the force behind the new consciousness in an interview published in Focus Magazine. According to Shevardnadze, U.S. missile defense plans helped German reunification.

I beg your pardon? You heard right. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) forced the Soviet Union into detente mode, as well as making German reunification possible. Note that it is not just hawks in the U.S. government who claim the Soviet Union had armed itself to death; that view is now shared by the most knowledgeable experts of that historical period.

That will not lessen German idolization of Gorbachev by any means because the Germans have long been immune to facts. Facts such as: Gorbachev was a dyed-in-the-wool apparatchik who, at 25 years of age, already belonged to the Nomenklatura and ascended to power with the help of Politburo mentors Suslov and Andropov, the former head of the secret police; his highest goal was not the promotion of freedom and liberty, but the rescue of the Soviet Union from economic collapse. Gorbymania has suppressed all of this. One quarter of the Soviet GDP was being spent on national defense back then. Growth and per-capita income had been stagnating since 1982; inflation, economic scarcity and corruption were running rampant, and then the Soviet Army suffered a bitter defeat in Afghanistan. It seemed the competition between the superpowers had been decided. The imperialist capitalist system had triumphed over the system of global socialism.

Reagan had been working single-mindedly toward that goal since his famous “evil empire” speech in June of 1982. He formulated his strategic goal clearly and far-sightedly. The Soviets were forced to decide whether they wanted to end their policy of permanent confrontation with the West or continue facing increasing economic pressure on their own country. Massive defense spending and America’s announcement on Mar 23, 1983, that it would begin building the missile shield brought their ideological opponents to the brink of economic ruin. A footnote: At nearly the same time, SPD politician Oskar Lafontaine published a book titled “Fear of Our Friends,” by which he meant the United States.

When Gorbachev was finally elected the second youngest General Secretary of the Communist Party on March 11, 1985, it happened mainly because of the realization that the Soviet economy needed a new direction to save it from collapse. The fact that the change in course developed a life of its own that eventually included German reunification is one of history’s ironies.

Gorby, Gorby, Gorby? No: Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and then, finally, Mikhail Gorbachev. A quarter of a century later, even those who were defeated admit that. It is only the Germans who have not yet gotten the message.