The Reagan Administration: A Reconstruction of American Strength? (review)

194 SAIS REVIEW The Reagan Administration; A Reconstruction ofAmerican Strength? Helga Haftendorn andJakob Schissler, eds. New York: Walter de Gruyter Books, 1988. 306 pp. Reviewed by Philip Gordon, Ph.D. Candidate, SAIS. In the 1984 election campaign, Ronald Reagan asked the American people: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" A similar question, but from a quite different perspective, is posed by this collection of retrospective essays from Berlin. These German scholars address how the United States fared as a world leader during the Reagan years. Their objective is to "assess the basis upon which the Reagan administration raised its claim of U.S. global leadership." The answer from this German point of view is neither favorable nor surprising . Because the subject at hand is U.S. leadership, these perspectives are worth more than a passing glance. Twelve authors take up different aspects of Reagan's policies, discussing them as qualified observers of the American scene. Their relative unanimity in an adverse judgment of the Reagan leadership legacy is full of potential lessons for Washington. The overwhelming emphasis of the book is on military aspects of American strength, which is understandable given the Reagan administration's similar bent. But "strength" and "leadership" in global affairs depend as much on economic health and financial soundness as on the possession of military force. Unfortunately, only one chapter is specifically devoted to the notion of economic strength; its message, however, is devastating. Claudia Wormann argues that Reagan's ambitious defense buildup and "reassertion" of American leadership were bought only at a very high and damaging price: monstrous balance-of-payments deficits financed by increasingly apprehensive foreign investors , an unprecedented increase in the national debt with service costs of over $10 billion per year, an overpriced dollar which weakens domestic industries and causes unemployment (especially in the manufacturing sector), and a trade balance so negative that it threatens the free-trade ideology Reagan tried to sell abroad. The debts and deficits are not a new story, nor are they solely the consequence of increased defense spending alone. But these points make the result no less troublesome; no matter how tired we get of hearing about them, the deficits and their consequences will not soon disappear. For America's trade partners, moreover, an American policy which relied on "offensive solutions" (like the imposition of "voluntary" export restraints) and unilateralism (by ignoring the effects of its policies abroad), and which waffled on exchange rate policy and central bank intervention, provided not a "demonstration of leadership" but rather a "costly lesson for all involved." Finally, the administration 's depiction of a strong dollar as a symbol that America was "back" may go down as one of the Reagan legacy's more bitter ironies. On defense issues— the Reagan administration's primary gauge of American strength— the authors are again rather united, and again rather severe. Michael Furst's essay on defense policy and Congress is probably the most BOOK REVIEWS 195 interesting and original contribution. First, he describes some of the incoherences of a structure in which Congress chooses weapons systems (often based on electoral rather than technical considerations), but the administration makes strategy. The result is a military force which is out of line with strategic goals. Fürst then asks whether the growth in U.S. military power was commensurate with the unprecedented defense buildup. For Fürst, the evidence leaves room for doubt. The ample funds pumped into defense industries did not yield equally significant growth in output. The cost explosion of military hardware was partially due to rapidly climbing technology costs, but loosely managed procurement played a central role in the defense budget's inflation. Fürst'sjudgment that strengthening ofU.S. armed forces under Reagan "turned out to be an empty phrase" seems a bit harsh; surely the American military is in better shape now than before the buildup, which the Carter administration started in the first place. But the American public has the right to ask if the military "strength" accumulated over the last eight years was worth the nearly $2 trillion price tag. This book is informative and at times even engaging; Christian Tuschhoffs account of...