Chapter 4
Ronald Reagan
Firm Conviction and American Exceptionalism

Our mission is to nourish and defend freedom and democracy, and communicate these ideals everywhere we can.

—President Ronald Reagan

On October 11, 1986, halfway between Moscow and Washington, DC, the leaders of the world’s two superpowers met at the stark and picturesque Höfdi House in Reykjavík, Iceland. Communist Party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had proposed the meeting to US president Ronald Reagan less than thirty days before. Expectations for the Reykjavík summit were low.

Höfdi was originally the house of the French consul in Iceland, and it bears to this day many signs of its original purpose, such as the letters RF (the abbreviation for République Française, the French Republic), in its architecture. It has welcomed many famous guests over the years, including the queen of England, Winston Churchill, and Marlene Dietrich. It has even had, so the story goes, a supernatural visitor: a ghostly “White Lady.” Her presence once concerned a previous British ambassador so much that he convinced the British Foreign Office to sell the house.

On October 11 and 12, 1986, the spirit in the house was not supernatural, but, against all expectations, it turned out to be supercharged. Reagan and Gorbachev took their talks forward at a breathtaking pace, breaking entirely new ground and putting the relationship between the superpowers on an unprecedented footing. Gorbachev agreed that human-rights issues were a legitimate topic of discussion, something no previous Soviet leader had ever conceded. A proposal to eliminate all new strategic missiles grew into a discussion, for the first time in history, of the real possibility of eliminating nuclear weapons forever. Aides to both leaders were astonished by the pace of the discussions. A summit that had begun with low expectations had blossomed into one of the most dramatic and potentially productive summits of all time. At one point Reagan even joked with Gorbachev about how to celebrate the dismantling of the last remaining nuclear warhead. In his biography of the president, Reagan: The Life, H. W. Brands reports Reagan’s jocular words:

I can imagine us both in ten years getting together again in Iceland to destroy the last Soviet and American missiles under triumphant circumstances. By then I’ll be so old that you won’t even recognize me. And you will ask in surprise, “Hey Ron, is that really you? What are you doing here?” And we’ll have a big celebration over it.

Such language at a summit would be surprising between leaders who are on the same side and share the same values. The fact that it was possible for Reagan to say it, and Gorbachev to accept it in the spirit in which it was meant, at a meeting of the world’s two superpowers at a time when a state of cold war existed between them, is nothing less than miraculous.

The 1986 Reykjavík meeting was the most remarkable summit ever held between US and Soviet leaders. In retrospect, it is a tale of two visionary leaders who had the courage to discuss the idealistic dream of a world free of nuclear weapons, and they had the will to try to turn the dream into reality. While they did not reach final agreement on that most sweeping of visions, they achieved an enormous breakthrough that paved the way for the subsequent adoption of two important agreements to reduce the arsenal of nuclear weapons: first, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), for the first time eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons, and second, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which led to a significant removal of strategic nuclear weapons.

Reagan’s outstanding achievements in nuclear disarmament go against the left-wing critics of his presidency. He is routinely accused of being a bellicose Cold War warrior, yet he is the president who not only brought the Cold War to an end peacefully, but did so in a manner that allowed freedom and democracy to prevail. The secret behind his success was the unique combination of his firm conviction and his ability to transform that into an effective execution of policies. It was his gift to be able to shape an overwhelming political coalition at home and translate it into determined action abroad. His sincerity was his strength, both in politics and in diplomacy, and it took him to heights that few presidents have ever matched.

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The twin strands of passionate conviction and decisive action were woven together throughout Reagan’s life. Like Truman, he grew up in the Midwest, in Dixon, Illinois. He followed a unique path to the White House. After successful careers as a radio sports announcer, Hollywood movie actor, and television host, he turned to politics relatively late in life. Indeed, his political path itself was far from orthodox. His political outlook was shaped by his parents, both Democrats, and he remained a Democrat until after he turned fifty. In Hollywood in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Reagan identified with Roosevelt’s internationalism, especially his opposition to the aggression of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. After World War II, Reagan aligned with the dominant faction in the Democratic Party: the anti-Communist liberals whose ranks included President Harry Truman and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Reagan’s experience of leadership began long before his formal political career. He joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1937, became a member of the union’s board in 1941 and its president in 1947, and continued to serve on the board after stepping down from the presidency in 1954. Thus, for more than a decade he was involved in the unique world of Hollywood union management.

It was a time of passionate conflict within SAG, reflecting the wider ideological conflict that dominated the world during the last years of Stalin and the first years of Khrushchev. A number of SAG members were Communist sympathizers; some were Communists themselves. Reagan passionately opposed Communism, and so saw their influence as a threat to everything he believed in. At a meeting in which many Communist sympathizers were present, Reagan stated that Communism was no better than Fascism. As a result, he became the target of attacks and harassment. He experienced firsthand the Communists’ boundless intolerance and their authoritarian urge to suppress dissent. He found it shocking that Communism had infiltrated Hollywood and the actors’ union so deeply, especially at a time when Soviet spy activity and infiltration were extensive. He took the radical step of cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ostensibly to eliminate Communist spies and subversive elements.

The decision remains one of his most controversial, and its justification is challenged to this day. For the student of Reagan’s subsequent presidency, however, it is extraordinarily revealing. It shows the strength of his conviction that Communism must be opposed, no matter what the cost, and it shows his determination to go beyond rhetoric in order to use all available instruments of power in fighting it. Those two principles were the foundation of his Soviet policy.

Reagan’s politics changed in the 1950s, partly influenced by his new job at General Electric. GE wanted to sponsor a television show, The General Electric Theater, with Reagan as host. Reagan took the job, and as part of it, he made many visits to General Electric plants and facilities. There he met workers as well as middle and senior managers, and listened to stories from real life about how red tape and high taxes made life hard and hampered the initiative of businesses and their employees. He developed a strong belief in the power of the free-market economy, protection of private property, and limited government. Impelled by that belief, he came to identify more and more with Republicans, and in 1962, his fifty-first year, he became a registered Republican.

It was as a Republican that he was elected governor of California in 1966, serving eight years. It was as a Republican that he twice ran unsuccessfully for president, in 1968 and 1976. And it was as a Republican that, in 1980, during a time of US economic troubles and foreign-policy difficulties, he won his party’s presidential nomination and defeated President Jimmy Carter to become the fortieth president of the United States.

When Reagan took office, public confidence in government was at its lowest ebb since the Great Depression. A passionate believer in the American way and the American people, his greatest goal was to make Americans believe in themselves again, and the fact that he achieved it may rank as his greatest single achievement. In return, that renewed American self-belief translated into belief in the president: In 1984, Reagan was reelected in a forty-nine-state landslide. During the eight years of his presidency, he reshaped national politics and carried out his campaign promises to cut taxes and increase the defense budget, using the latter as leverage to negotiate significant arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union. Despite some setbacks, including notable budget deficits, Reagan left office in 1989 with strong approval ratings. He was a giant among American presidents, and that is how he is still remembered.

Reagan won two of the most convincing election victories in American history in large part because he spoke to American voters in terms that were both familiar and inspiring to them. The strong mandate that these elections gave him also strengthened his hand on the international scene. Domestically, Reagan was able to push through large increases in defense spending, which is always a challenge in democratic nations where voters naturally prefer tax cuts and domestically oriented spending. Internationally, Reagan’s landslide victories sent a powerful signal to the Soviet Union and other adversaries, as well as allies, that Reagan had political room for maneuver.

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For Americans, and for Reagan himself, his greatest achievement was his ability to reignite their self-belief. For the rest of the world, however, he has gone down in history as the man who did more than any other to bring the Cold War to a close without firing a shot. Both successes were based on a single principle, one that guided him throughout his career: Strong, effective policies are best based on strong convictions.

Informed by his experiences in SAG and his own perception of the Stalinist regime, Reagan regarded Communism as an immoral and destructive ideology and believed that the Soviet Union was bent on world domination. In a famous speech he delivered on March 8, 1983, he called the Soviets “the focus of evil in the modern world” and referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” He never doubted the supremacy of free societies. In a speech to the British House of Commons on June 8, 1982, he declared that “freedom and democracy will leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history.” On June 12, 1987, Reagan visited West Berlin, and, like President Kennedy before him, he delivered a memorable speech. Referring to the wall that divided West and East Berlin, he declared: “This wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” And addressing directly the Soviet leader, Mr. Gorbachev, President Reagan proclaimed: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

That speech has gone down in history: the most memorable public appeal ever made by an American leader to a Soviet one, and one that, in just a few short years, would see its fulfillment. Would Reagan have been able to make that speech if he had not struck up such a rapport with Gorbachev in Reykjavík the year before? We will never know, but the consciousness of knowing his opponent must surely have reinforced his conviction that the Berlin Wall, and Communism itself, must both fall.

But just as in Hollywood in the 1950s, Reagan was determined to turn his conviction into action. Rhetoric was not enough. He believed that it was necessary for the United States to combat the spread of Soviet-backed Marxist and leftist regimes throughout the world. In his State of the Union address on February 6, 1985, he established what came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine: The United States should support anti-Communist insurgents wherever they might be. He proclaimed:

We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. . . . Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.

Reagan reaffirmed his strong belief in the power of freedom and democracy, and formulated a wide-ranging strategy of American global leadership in protecting and promoting liberty:

Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children. Look to where peace and prosperity flourish today. It is in the homes that freedom built. Victories against poverty are greatest and peace most secure where people live by laws that ensure free press, free speech, and freedom to worship, vote and create wealth. Our mission is to nourish and defend freedom and democracy, and to communicate these ideals everywhere we can. America’s economic success is freedom’s success; it can be repeated a hundred times in a hundred different nations.

In action, the Reagan Doctrine translated into covertly supporting the contras in their fight against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua; the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Soviet occupiers; and anti-Communist Angolan forces involved in that nation’s civil war. American support for these “freedom fighters” was not without controversy, and not all its consequences were positive, but in his farewell address in 1989, Reagan claimed success in weakening the Sandinista government, forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, and bringing an end to the conflict in Angola. Above all, Reagan could rejoice in an emerging thaw in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, due not least to his firm stance in pushing back against the expansionism of international Communism. The Soviets eventually realized that the Communist system simply was not able to cope with freedom, capitalism, and resolute American global leadership.

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But it would be a mistake to believe that Reagan’s foreign policy was based on anti-Communism alone. First and foremost, it was founded on a powerful conviction of the economic and moral superiority of capitalism and democracy. Reagan firmly believed that political freedom and a free-market economy were the free world’s unbeatable weapons in its battle against totalitarianism. In Reagan’s eyes, the Cold War was the struggle between might and right: a clash between the principle that the state should control its citizens and the principle that the citizens should control the state.

Reagan never doubted the ability of democratic societies to outcompete the Soviet Union politically, economically, and militarily. He firmly believed that America’s obvious power and prosperity were the best argument for political and economic freedom. And in an inspired stroke of intuition, he reasoned that the more obvious he could make the argument, the stronger the argument would be. In one of his favorite stories, he would describe how the landscape looked from his helicopter as he flew to the presidential retreat at Camp David—full of houses with little backyard swimming pools and automobiles in the driveways. “I have a fantasy about having Mr. Gorbachev beside me,” the president once said, “and being able to point down and say, ‘Those are the homes of American workers and they own them!’”

As president, Reagan promoted economic policies aimed at stimulating economic growth and free enterprise. The four pillars of his economic policy were to lower taxes, reduce regulation, restrain government spending, and reduce inflation through a noninflationary monetary policy. At the beginning of his presidency he cut taxes drastically, by 25 percent, including reducing the top marginal tax rate from 70 percent to less than 30 percent. The philosophy behind the tax cuts was that lower taxes would actually increase government revenue because it would provide a greater incentive to work, produce, and invest, and a greater capacity to consume. Critics called it, scornfully, “voodoo economics.”

Having trained as an economist, I was one of many commentators who viewed Reagan’s politics with initial skepticism. I had been taught John Maynard Keynes’s theories of demand-side economics. Demand-siders believed that unemployment could be reduced and economic activity could be increased through government action aimed at boosting demand for goods and services, for example, through higher public spending. However, as a young member of the Danish parliament, I visited the University of Chicago in the summer of 1982, and that visit was an eye-opener. The Chicago school of economics is a famous free-market-oriented economic philosophy, and my meeting with members of the faculty had an enormous impact on my career. Some people have spiritual or religious awakenings, but for me this was an economic awakening, and I started challenging the economic theories I had been taught at school at home.

In Chicago, I was introduced to supply-side economics. In essence, the supply-siders argue that government can stimulate the economy more effectively through indirect action, by cutting taxes and red tape in order to increase the incentive to work. In other words, where demand-siders believe that governments can get more by intervening more, supply-siders believe that governments can get more by intervening less. I learned about the Laffer curve—a theoretical graph showing that reducing tax rates could increase tax revenues by stimulating economic activity. As a classical European liberal, believing in free markets and the power of the individual, I was receptive to that message. Having met with numerous people from all walks of life during my American educational journey and listened to their reports about the nascent economic optimism, I left the United States fully convinced that Reaganomics would work. And the fact is that the US economy started to grow after years of stagnation, millions of new jobs were created, and family incomes grew significantly. When Reagan left office, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates were lower than when he took office. While the public deficit grew due to massive military spending, America’s economic progress was widely recognized and sent a powerful signal of American vigor to friends and foes alike.

Reagan transformed that economic muscle into military and foreign-policy strength.

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From the beginning of his presidency, Reagan took a number of steps to enhance American military power, to counter Communist expansionism, and to communicate in clear language his opposition to Communism and the Soviet Union’s suppression of its neighboring nations. Reagan vowed to rebuild the American military after the Vietnam debacle and the years of stagnation that followed, and to confront the Soviet Union and its allies with new vigor and purpose. He was convinced that, if America put all its efforts into converting economic potential into military strength, the Soviets would be unable to compete and would come to the bargaining table. Reagan was of the firm belief that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay. Unlike many others, including some of his advisers, he believed that the Soviet Union could be overcome by the use of economic tools. The key would be to make the United States so economically and militarily strong that the Soviet Union could not afford to catch up with the leader of the free world. This would lead to the Soviet Union’s collapse. Thus, Reagan gave military spending priority over his promise of a balanced budget. The defense budget in his first term more than doubled. These funds were allocated to a wide array of new weapons systems, research and development, and improvements in combat readiness and troop mobility.

In March 1983, Reagan unveiled his plan for a missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which critics derided as “Star Wars,” after the name of the popular movie series. The purpose of this system was to protect the American people from attack by long-range—and potentially nuclear-armed—missiles; in other words, to make nuclear weapons obsolete by making attacks impossible because the missiles would be destroyed before they reached their targets. It was an ambitious project, and it made the Soviet leadership deeply concerned, because it would have gravely undermined the Soviet Union’s nuclear strength, and the Soviet Union would not be able to compete with the United States in this arms race—either economically or technologically. That is why Gorbachev made the abandonment of SDI a central point of his demands in Reykjavík. However, Reagan refused to give any concessions in that regard, and in retrospect, his refusal to budge was the main reason why the summit ended inconclusively.

Reagan was convinced that the Soviet Union had not abided by treaty obligations to maintain nuclear parity among the superpowers. The Soviets were rapidly deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe, the SS-20 missiles. The United States’ allies in Western Europe felt threatened by this aggressive nuclear buildup within the Warsaw Pact. This development prompted the NATO Double-Track Decision. On the diplomatic track, the Soviet Union would be called on to halt the deployment of nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe, while NATO and the Warsaw Pact should agree on a mutual reduction and limitation of nuclear missiles. If that track failed to bear fruit, NATO (i.e., the United States) would deploy more nuclear weapons in Western Europe. In Europe, the Double-Track approach provoked a lot of opposition from left-wing groups, very often inspired by Soviet propaganda. But thanks to President Reagan and his determined leadership, Europe’s political leaders stood their ground, the Double-Track Decision was unanimously approved by NATO members, and an unmistakable signal of Western unity and decisiveness was sent to the Kremlin. Eventually, the Soviet leaders realized that the Soviet Union could not afford this nuclear buildup, and in 1987 Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to destroy all middle-range missiles through the INF Treaty, an indirect product of the Reykjavík summit one year earlier.

Reagan was proven right: The decisive American military buildup encouraged the Soviets to come to the bargaining table and facilitated political dialogue and arms reductions. But beyond that, the buildup showed America’s traditional allies that he meant business and was sincere in the defense of their interests. Thanks to what some might consider hawkish policies, Reagan gained the leverage to engage the Soviet leader in a political and diplomatic process. Once again it was demonstrated that strong diplomacy works best when it is built on the foundation of strong military forces and a strong will.

Reagan was a consummate diplomat, a man who knew how to give and take, but who also knew when to stand firm in defense of principles that he believed sacrosanct. In the conflict with Communism that defined his presidency to the outside world, Reagan believed strongly in the power of freedom, and he had no doubts about the attractiveness of the Western ideals. He rejected the self-doubt that had infected the American approach to foreign policy after the Vietnam War and emphasized vigorously the power of Western ideals to win the battle for hearts and minds in the world. For him, the Cold War was basically a battle of values—between an autocratic and oppressive Communist system inspired and led by the Soviet Union and a democratic and liberal capitalist system inspired and led by the United States.

In this battle, Reagan firmly believed that the United States could only deal with an expansionist and aggressive state like the Soviet Union through superior power and a firm stance. This conviction was, to a large degree, founded on “the lesson of Munich,” the failure of appeasement prior to World War II. But Reagan was also of the firm belief that it was a built-in characteristic of the Soviet system to bend only when it was confronted with an overwhelming power. All attempts to meet “legitimate” Soviet concerns would be counterproductive. Rather than promoting dialogue and rapprochement, these attempts would be perceived as Western weakness, encourage the Soviet Union to continued intransigence, and strengthen the Soviet belief in Communist invincibility.

It was Reagan’s steadfast belief that only overwhelming power and the willingness to use it would deter the Soviet Union from continued expansionism, and he was convinced that the strength of the American and Western societies would eventually force the Soviets to the negotiating table. The most efficient way to engage in a constructive dialogue with the Soviet Union was to negotiate from a position of strength. He had formulated that position as far back as 1976 during his unsuccessful bid for the presidency. In his campaign address on March 31, 1976, he stated, “Peace does not come from weakness or retreat. It comes from the restoration of American military superiority.” During his presidency, the formula became “peace through strength,” and Reagan’s focus on negotiating from a position of strength proved right.

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Reagan’s Democrat politics throughout the first half-century of his life could have weakened him in the eyes of both the party he left and the party he joined; part of his genius was his ability to turn it into a strength. Due to his understanding of the experiences and emotions of both parties, he was able to build a strong and unconventional domestic coalition that gave him considerable room to maneuver to cut taxes, increase defense spending, and exert a firm policy toward the Soviet Union. The great popular support for Reagan was based on a coalition of traditional Republicans and the so-called Reagan Democrats, socially conservative Democrats who were attracted by Reagan’s robust foreign policy.

Furthermore, Reagan managed to transform that popular support into a forceful coalition in Congress. Indeed, during his first term as president, Reagan had to deal with a Democratic-controlled House, while the Senate was held by the Republicans. But he demonstrated great skills as a coalition builder, inviting swing congressmen to talks in the White House and at Camp David. It also helped that he had well-developed ties and an excellent personal relationship with the Democratic leadership, notably the House Speaker, Tip O’Neill. But first and foremost, he used his special talent as a popular communicator. When Reagan had a major project that had been met with opposition in Congress, he appealed directly to the American people through carefully crafted TV appearances. His appeals had a powerful effect: After them, members of Congress were flooded with letters and phone calls from constituents who wanted their congressman to support the president. No president since Kennedy had shown such an ability to use the media to mobilize support for his policies. This made it possible for Reagan to reach out directly to the public at large and put a maximum of pressure on his opponents in Congress.

But most important, Reagan was able to harvest his political victories because he so effectively encapsulated the core American values and instilled new optimism in American society. “It’s morning again in America” became the catchphrase for his American economic and political revival, and was used in the Reagan campaign for reelection in 1984 in television ads that reinforced the message by saying, “Under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder, and stronger and better.” That sent an unmistakable message of strength and resolve and optimism to the American people, as well as friends and adversaries abroad.

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Any leader must emanate a firm conviction and self-confidence to get people to follow. For the United States, the will to lead entails a firm belief in the exceptional position of America as the world’s predominant power; an acceptance of the country’s exceptional strength, obligation, and responsibility; and self-confidence in the basic principles of freedom upon which America has been built. Furthermore, global leadership is only sustainable with a strong domestic political mandate. For America to truly have the will to lead, the American president must be backed by a strong political coalition; otherwise, America’s foreign policy constantly risks being undercut by America’s political games.

Ronald Reagan is a great example of an American president who exuded conviction and confidence and was able to mobilize a strong political coalition. When he took office, the United States was struggling with the cultural and political fallout from Vietnam and the economic crisis of the 1970s. When he left office, the Communist bloc was on the verge of worldwide collapse and the United States was in the midst of a boom of economic growth and innovation. Reagan’s belief in American exceptionalism was never in doubt. Again and again he alluded to a special purpose for America, as in his Thanksgiving message in 1982:

I have always believed that this anointed land was set apart in an uncommon way; that a divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth who had a special love of faith and freedom.

Not surprisingly, one of Reagan’s favorite metaphors for America was the “city upon a hill,” a term taken from John Winthrop’s sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” from 1630. In his farewell address on January 11, 1989, Reagan referred to Winthrop as “an early pilgrim, an early freedom man,” and ended with an emotional and powerful vision for America.

I have spoken of the shining city all my political life but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace. A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still.

“A city upon a hill” is a phrase from the parable of salt and light in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his listeners, “You are the light of the world: a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Still aboard the ship Arbella, the Puritan Winthrop admonished the future Massachusetts Bay colonists that their future would be “as a city upon a hill,” watched by the world, which became the idea on which New England colonists based their hilly capital city, Boston.

Reagan was not the only president to speak metaphorically about the “city upon a hill.” So did President Kennedy. On January 9, 1961, Kennedy turned the phrase to prominence during an address delivered to the General Court of Massachusetts:

I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella 331 years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. “We must always consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us.” Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.

At their core, both Kennedy and Reagan believed that America is exceptional, as they believed that there was something special about America that sets the nation apart from the other nations of the world. Reagan continually made deliberate attempts to help Americans rediscover the greatness of the nation by sharing what he believed made America an exceptional and great nation. Based on this firm conviction, he exercised determined American global leadership that eventually brought the Soviet Union and international Communism to a collapse and ended the Cold War.

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In recent years, it has become politically incorrect in some circles to speak of “American exceptionalism.” This is unfortunate, for without a firm belief in America’s special role in the world, the American electorate is unlikely to support the burden of American global leadership. It is no coincidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin chose the term “American exceptionalism” as his theme in a New York Times op-ed article in September 2013. Putin’s article was published as a response to President Obama’s reference to American exceptionalism during his speech on Syria a few days earlier. Putin wrote:

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessing, we must not forget that God created us equal.

The latter was, of course, a polemical reference to the language of the Declaration of Independence from 1776.

Obviously, you should always be careful in using the term “exceptional,” in particular if it represents a moral judgment that “you are better than others.” To my mind, the term “American exceptionalism” rather reflects the fact that the United States is different from other countries in a very special way. It is an undeniable fact that America occupies an exceptional position in the world, whether Mr. Putin likes it or not.

First of all, America holds a unique geographical location. Besides Mexico and Canada, the United States is the only major country to have direct access to both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This unique geography offers logistical and military advantages. Whereas other big powers—for instance, China, Russia, and India—have common, tense borders to defend, forcing them to devote a lot of resources and attention to local and regional issues, America is free from such regional challenges and can focus on executing a global leadership role. On top of that, the United States possesses vast natural resources, including some of the world’s most productive agricultural land and largest energy reserves. In recent years, advanced hydraulic fracturing technology has added yet another dimension to the American economic potential. Soon the United States will be self-sufficient when it comes to energy, which will drastically change the geopolitical landscape and add further to American power.

Next, the development of the United States as a nation is exceptional. The United States has been a melting pot. For centuries it has attracted people from all over the world who long for freedom and opportunity. The United States re-creates itself by attracting the best and brightest from the rest of the world and blending them into a diverse culture of creativity. That gives a formidable strength to the American economy, but it also expands America’s ties with peoples and cultures all over the world.

Finally, the idealism upon which the United States is founded and the development of mature, solid democratic institutions are truly exceptional. The early American colonists came from Europe very much inspired by the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was crucial in determining almost every aspect of colonial America—most notably in terms of politics, government, and religion. Concepts such as freedom from oppression, free speech, natural rights, and new ways of thinking about government structure came straight from Enlightenment philosophers. Montesquieu’s idea about the balance of power among the three branches of government was explicitly used, just as Rousseau’s ideas about the power of democracy and consent of the people were used in the formation of government.

This history of American democracy has added other enduring advantages to American strength. The American foundation on the idea of individual rights and personal liberty has a universal attraction—maybe not in the circles of autocratic elites that rule some nations under kleptocracy and oppression, but certainly among ordinary people who look to America as the inspiring flame of freedom, “the shining city on the hill” that they would very much like to live in. Being the world’s oldest democracy, the United States has succeeded in developing strong, mature democratic institutions, tested and tried over time. And while democratic evolution is perpetual, undoubtedly the American governmental structures are the strongest in the world, and clearly fit for global leadership.

My point here is not to state the obvious, but to highlight that these evident facts have broader implications than immediately meet the eye. A position of fundamental strength necessarily impacts the way that other powers view America, and therefore imposes a leadership role on the United States whether Americans choose to accept it or not. The question is not what America’s role in the world should be, but whether America chooses to play this role with the gusto and conviction that a star performance requires.

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Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan were all star performers in their own way. Despite their differences—different personalities, different family backgrounds, different upbringings, and different life experiences—they were nonetheless united in their view of American exceptionalism and in the conviction that America has a special role in the world and a special responsibility to exercise global leadership in defense of freedom and democracy.

Each had his own strengths. President Truman was effective in conducting a policy that established strong institutions as the framework for a new international order. He rebuilt the house of the nations after the devastation of two world wars. President Kennedy was an outstanding communicator, who was an inspiring beacon for the entire free world during the most threatening period of the Cold War. He held the torch of freedom high and lit the world with it. While President Reagan was also a great speaker, his strength was primarily his staunch belief in the superiority of capitalism and the inferiority of Communism. He turned back the tide of Soviet imperialism and made the Iron Curtain shake.

While Truman’s and Kennedy’s policies toward the Soviet Union and international Communism were based on the assumption that the Soviet Union was an economically, technologically, and militarily strong power, Reagan had the clear view that Soviet Communism was basically weak and could be defeated by means of economic warfare, backed by strong and credible military deterrence.

Consequently, Truman and Kennedy pursued an essentially defensive containment policy toward the Soviet Union, while Reagan pursued an offensive policy by countering international Communist expansionism. First and foremost, Reagan wanted to force the Soviet Union to its knees economically by developing an unbeatably strong US economy and demonstrating to the world’s Communist nations that capitalism is the most efficient system to meet people’s basic needs. To paraphrase Kennedy, President Reagan mobilized American capitalism and sent it into battle.

All three had the courage to break with the isolationism that had surrounded them in their early years, and to mark themselves as their own men, free of the limitations of their pasts. Truman spoke out early in favor of American internationalism, thus pursuing a policy that ran counter to the Missouri voters’ conventional inclination toward isolationism. Kennedy distanced himself from his father’s pronounced isolationism; and Reagan not only switched from the Democrats to the Republicans, he also eliminated the current of isolationism, or rather noninterference, that had characterized parts of the Republican Party since President Herbert Hoover.

In his book Profiles in Courage, about the bravery and integrity of eight US senators who had the courage to defy the opinion of their party and constituents to do what they felt was right, then–Senator Kennedy wrote: “This is a book about that most admirable of human virtues—courage.” Aiming at the threatening Soviet Communist dictatorship, he continued:

Only the very courageous will be able to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival in the struggle with a powerful enemy—an enemy with leaders who need give little thought to the popularity of their course. . . . And only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation.

Presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan had the courage. Holding office at the beginning of the Cold War, the crisis itself, and the end of the Cold War, respectively, they had the moral and political bravery to make the hard and unpopular decisions, for the sake of freedom and democracy. They fought the forces of totalitarianism abroad, without using its methods at home. They are shining and exemplary illustrations of how American global leadership can be performed efficiently. Of course, they made mistakes, and they suffered their defeats. But overall, their presidencies were a success, and they showed that determined American leadership can protect and promote freedom and democracy, ensure peace, and keep autocracy and oppression at bay.