On the Brink, and: Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (review)

Jay Winik’s On the Brink and Phillip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice’s Germany Unified, Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft explore the nature of bureaucratic leadership in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Both books analyze the decision-making processes at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council (NSC), and the foreign policy deliberations between the President, Cabinet, and foreign policy experts.

On the Brink examines the careers of four Reagan Administration officials: Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security (1981–1987); Jean Kirkpatrick, United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1981–1985); Eliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (1983–1988); and Max Kampelman who served under President Reagan as Ambassador to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, head of the US negotiating team to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), and Counselor to the State Department. Germany Unified, Europe Transformed focuses on the NSC team responsible for the question of German unification, headed by Robert Blackwill.

The two books analyze twelve years of US diplomacy and examine how foreign policy officials handled issues such as the conclusions of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF) and START; the end of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; US relations with developing countries; and the reunification of Germany.

The political style of all four share a number of similarities. All of them are former Democrats. The authors contend that their prominence in Republican administrations was attributable to their important policy initiatives in the pursuit of crucial US interests. The authors further point out that while each of these advisers encountered obstacles in attempting to implement their policies, some were more successful than others.

Winik asserts that Perle and Kampelman succeeded in convincing policymakers of the merits of their analyses and recommendations. Perle worked with his subordinates to introduce “the zero-option” in arms control negotiations with the Soviets. Winik describes how Perle championed the testing and deployment of an early anti-ballistic missile defense system and was scuttled by the chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Sam Nunn. He asserts that Perle was nonetheless successful in accomplishing his policy goals and attributes this to his articulation of strong ideological opposition to both Democratic and Republican arms control doctrine, the expansion of his responsibilities, and his familiarity with the Secretaries of State and Defense, the President, and Congress.

Max Kampelman supported the freedom of Soviet dissidents, demanding that Moscow adhere to the principles of the Helsinki Accords on human rights, yet his pleas for political and economic freedom in the Warsaw Pact countries were ignored by the Brezhnev regime. However Kampelman’s pressure on the Soviets was fruitful after Gorbachev introduced his policies of glasnost and perestroika . Kampelman’s legal expertise enabled him to help the President and the Secretary of State to explain to the American public that negotiations with the Soviets would help trim an aggressive military structure, as well as clarifying its impact on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

Kirkpatrick and Abrams, on the other hand, failed to see their policies materialize. Kirkpatrick warned that the Carter Administration had erred in pushing for modernization, reform, and development in the Third World, arguing that it had led to the advent of a Marxist-Leninist system in Nicaragua, and the rise of a reactionary religious theocracy in Iran. Yet Winik postulates that moderates such as Vice-President George Bush, White House Chief of Staff James Baker, and Secretary of State George Shultz viewed Kirkpatrick as too rigid in her interpretation of global developments. They found her assertion that the Arab-Israeli conflict was purely a Cold War issue and an arena for Soviet expansion into the Middle East inaccurate, arguing instead that regional crises such as the Palestinian question had their unique historical roots.

Eliot Abrams...