Reagan's Policy Research Articles

From Reagan to Bush: The Transition in US Policy Towards Central America

Many foreign policy analysts in the United States expected a shift in US policy towards Latin America when George Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan as president. Though Bush had been a loyal supporter of Reagan's policies throughout the preceding eight years, Bush nevertheless seemed more pragmatic than his mentor. Whereas Reagan was the leader of the Republican Party's right wing, Bush was a scion of the East Coast Republican establishment, stronghold of the party's moderate centre.

Reflections on Victory: The United States and Central America

REFLECTIONS ON VICTORY:. THE UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA Piero Gleijeses I.n Central America and the Caribbean the twentieth century was ushered in by U.S. Marines sent by Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson to tell the natives of their new destiny and to teach them, in Wilson's immortal words, "to elect good men." The Pax Americana was established. Nowhere else in the world would America's influence be so pervasive. But in the late 1970s, armed men of the Left seized power in Nicaragua and challenged the pro-American stability of El Salvador and Guatemala. Now, after a decade of struggle and pain—years in which Central America crowded the front pages of the American press and demanded inordinate attention from the U.S. establishment—now, we can pause and reflect. The challenge has been hurled back, a spent wave full of blood. The guerrillas have been defeated in Guatemala and kept at bay in El Salvador. Above all, Nicaragua is free—free of Sandinista rule. The Sandinistas have been humbled at the polls in the first free elections in Nicaragua's history, possible only because ofthe constant prodding ofthe Piero Gleijeses is associate professor of American foreign policy and Latin American studies at SAIS. His publications include The Dominican Crisis (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), Tilting at Windmills: Reagan in Central America (Washington, D.C.: Foreign Policy Institute, 1982), and Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States (forthcoming, Princeton University Press). He has also published numerous articles in a variety of professional journals. 167 168 SAISREVIEW United States. In Central America the twentieth century will end as it began—as the American century. Vindication Partisan rivalry must not cloud the truth: this was Ronald Reagan's victory. Like most Third World leaders, the Sandinistas did not believe in free elections. Left alone, they would have held onto the power they had seized. It was Ronald Reagan, a latter-day Wilson, who created the conditions that forced them to the polls. Ronald Reagan and his little band of crusaders—people like Alexander Haig, Jeane Kirkpatrick, William Casey, and Elliot Abrams—pummeled the Sandinistas and shoved the often reluctant U.S. bureaucracy. True, militarily the Sandinistas emerged victorious. As Reagan began his second term, the Pentagon warned that a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua would be too costly: four to six U.S. divisions, a lengthy military occupation, and thousands ofAmerican casualties. The Contras were not an impressive force, CIA analysts and Pentagon officers pointed out, for they lacked the stamina and the commitment of, for instance, the Salvadoran guerrillas. But the destructions of the Contra war, and the cost of the military build-up required to discourage a U.S. invasion, wreaked economic havoc on Nicaragua. As did Reagan's 1985 economic embargo and other, even more crippling measures: as early as 1982, for example, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) were ordered by the United States to refuse all economic aid to Nicaragua. By the end of President Reagan's second term, Soviet aid was all that was saving a prostrated Nicaragua from collapse. And under Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow's willingness to foot the bill was on the wane. In despair, the Sandinistas consented to free elections—elections they believed they would win. Their defeat was the vindication ofPresident Reagan's policy. But just as there could have been no victory without Reagan, so too there could have been no victory without the Democrats' willingness to tolerate the Contra war and the economic sanctions and to avert their eyes while the Reagan administration ordered the World Bank and the IDB to violate their own charters. Thus, even if Reagan deserves most of the credit, the defeat of the Sandinistas is, in the truest tradition of U.S. policy in the region, a bipartisan victory.1 1. Just as were the 1954 overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic. REFLECTIONS ON VICTORY 169 A Question of Cost Victory is particularly sweet because the cost has been so low. The Contra war may have claimed 30,000 Nicaraguans, but fewer than a...

Executive Responsiveness to Presidential Policies: The Reagan Presidency

The Reagan administration was in a very strong position to secure the responsiveness of executive agencies to its policy goals. Because of the clarity of its public philosophy, it was able to send much clearer signals as to its policy commitments than earlier administrations. The administration also subjected prospective appointees to a much more rigorous ideological screening than its predecessors. And the White House was able to build on the achievements of earlier presidents, especially Jimmy Carter, in staffing administrative agencies with ideologically compatible executives. However, these initial advantages did not enable the administration to escape the policy discord within the executive that had plagued earlier presidencies. Major executive appointees advocated and pursued policies not in accord with the ideological orientation of the White House. Moreover, even when his appointees remained loyal to Reagan's policy goals, this did not necessarily guarantee that the President's policies would prev...

Melby, S. The High North in Future US Security Policy. Cooperation and Conflict, XXV, 1990, 41-58

The Reagan administration's policy and interests concerning the situation in the North are described in this article. This is followed by an analysis of the major domestic and international bases for Reagan's security policy with its emphasis on the US Navy and Forward Maritime Strategy. On this basis, the possible changes in US and international security policy in the years ahead are analyzed. With this broad perspective as a starting point the possible future US policy and interests in the North are analyzed. It is concluded that several factors indicate an increased US interest in the North.

Foreword

FOREWORD Understanding the difference between necessity and choice is the first step a new administration must take ifit is to develop a successful foreign policy. In the twilight of a Reagan administration foreign policy that has evolved from the limitations placed on policymakers by their ideological zeal to an unexpectedly pragmatic approach to the Soviet Union, the United States must now come to terms with its own mortality. The 1980s have been relatively stable and prosperous, yet the budget and trade deficits accrued over the past eight years exemplify not only poor management but a primary fault in the composition of the American ethos: the differences between necessity and choice have become increasingly blurred and may no longer be distinguished. Excess government spending reflects an attitude prevalent among a cross section of the U.S. citizenry: the tacit acceptance of living, and in some cases thriving , on borrowed money. The government —reflecting the mind-set of its citizenry—has spent beyond its resources and does not worry about payment. As the Republicans continue to rest on the laurels of the economic expansion that occurred during the Reagan years, the Democrats retort that any administration could achieve such economic growth if it had a one trillion dollar limit on its mythical Visa card. The United States must now construct a fiscally sound and realistic foreign policy agenda. The issue of necessity and choice in U.S. foreign policy has become particularly volatile as a new administration must choose those Reagan policies it wishes to pursue and those it will redirect. The ability to control the temptation of misusing the almost unlimited privilege given to a president to create his own unique chapter in a history book will make the difference between a foreign policy guided by ideological zealotry or rational expectations. Simon Serfaty's "Farewell to Reagan: New vi SAIS REVIEW Beginnings Are Not Needed" illustrates that a more pragmatic and less emotional foreign policy agenda in pursuit ofmoderate goals is the best, and most likely successful, course of action. The 1980s have witnessed fragmentation in the many areas of foreign policy decisionmaking, as the Reagan administration's international agenda has been inconsistent and often contradictory. Defining the foreign policy needs and choices for a new administration will require not only a possible reordering of priorities but also a redefinition of consensual goals. In "Building a New Consensus" a distinguished group of past and present foreign policy luminaries have joined in order to define what U.S. foreign policy goals should be after the conservative and liberal labels are shed and party allegiance is dissolved. From Harold Brown to Brent Scowcroft, the authors of the following two policy consensus reports on "Fiscal Policy and Foreign Policy" and "The Future of NATO" attempt— in their respective policy recommendations and working memorandums— to define a credible set of nonideological and nonpartisan policies that will reinvigorate the united voice of U.S. foreign policy from years past. Senator David L. Boren's article discusses the intragovernmental dynamics necessary to create such a consensus in foreign policy. Furthermore, in "1989: A Truly Presidential Agenda," George Liska writes of bipartisanship as a means of relating and reacting to the reform effort now under way in the Soviet Union: "If he [the new president] is to demonstrate leadership—as opposed to mere competence—he will have to shape a new, bipartisan foreign policy consensus, and he will have to show the will and the ability to break with established practice if the American people — and other concerned peoples—are to have a real opportunity to learn from trying antecedents." Since the Soviet Union has found it necessary (or was it by choice?) to reform temporarily its domestic and foreign policy doctrine, the United States must necessarily react to this challenge of a fundamental change in superpower relations. Although arms control agreements and strategic military policy are rarely, if at all, affected by public consensus in either country, cooperative ties in less life-threatening areas can help only to decrease tensions that have developed from years of propaganda and a lack of individual, day-to-day communication. In Burton I. Edelson and Alan Townsend's article on U...

From cold wars to Star Wars: debates over defense and detente

This book discusses the relationship between Ronald Reagan's political and strategic policies and the policies of the cold war presidencies. Beginning with a review of these presidencies, the author attempts to discover the purposes, applications, and problems of containment. The author contends that containment is both a set of values and goals as well as a set of tactics for achieving foreign policy goals, and that Reagan's views of the Soviet Union and his criticism of detente reflect views similar to many of the cold war presidents. This study includes a review of containment successes and failures since World War II; the evolution in American weapons systems, arms control efforts, and nuclear strategies; and the extent to which Star Wars and notions of deterrence based on defense contribute to or undermine American security. Chapter headings include: From Containment to Detente; Containment Revisited: Reagan's Approach to Soviet-American Relations; Weapons and Words; Salt, Start, and Stops: The Evolution of Arms Control; Evolution of Nuclear Strategy: Do We Want to be Mad?; Star Wars or What to do if the Empire Strikes First; and From Cold Wars to Star Wars to No Wars.

Reagan's National Security Legacy

As the Reagan presidency draws to an end, speculation grows as to its legacy in various areas, from domestic economics to international politics. The current study takes as its focus the Reagan legacy in the area of national security policy: specifically, the possible effects of Reagan's defense spending and Soviet policies. Using the global political-economic simulation model GLOBUS, a set of Reagan-like budgeting and foreign policies are formally implemented within the model and the resulting changes in behavior systematically evaluated. Two versions of this scenario are examined. In the first, it is assumed that the Reagan policies represent a permanent shift in the American position, while in the second case these policies are seen as a temporary aberration, remaining in effect only as long as Reagan is in the White House. Beginning with the political effects of these policy changes on Soviet-American relations and the national security of the two superpowers, the study then expands its focus to changes in the budgeting behavior of the United States and the impact on the domestic economy. These changes in American national security policy reverberate strongly throughout the political-economic system, though their effects are neither as uniformly positive as the supporters of these policies would claim nor as consistently negative as the critics profess.

Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies. By Marc A. Celmer (New York: Greenwood, 1987. x, 132p. $29.95).

List of Charts Preface Introduction: International Terrorism: Issues and Questions Contemporary International Terrorism Coordination of the United States Anti-terrorism Program Agencies and Departments Comprising Anti-terrorist Bureaucracy U.S. Military Capabilities and Counter-terrorism The Intelligence Community and Terrorism American Use of International Law in Combatting Terrorism United States Policy: Past, Present, and Future Appendix: Heads of the State Department's Anti-terrorist Office: 1972-1987 Selected Bibliography Index

Editing in a Bilingual, Bicultural Context

Editing in a bilingual, bicultural environment involves many of the same problems and frustrations as editing in a monolingual environment; however, the bilingual, bicultural environment often exacerbates these problems. Editing is further complicated by linguistic interference among the author's languages. Finally, culturally conditioned attitudes toward the duties and responsibilities of the editor create areas of potential conflicts between editor and author. If technical participation of non-native English speakers is to increase, as hoped for in such endeavors as President Reagan's policy of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, editors must be sensitive toward those problems in such complicated circumstances.

An Evaluation of Reagan’s Economic Policies from an Incentivist (Supply-Side) Perspective

In one respect has become like The Theory of Relativity: a phrase often dropped at cocktail parties without a hint of the deeper implications. So a critical evaluation of Reagan's economic policy should start by first defining supply-side economics. Three basic points are worth emphasizing: * Supply-side economics did not start out as a theory of taxes. Instead it originated as a theory of how countries can achieve stable prices in an integrated global economy. Supply-side economics is a multidimensional theory.

A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Relations: The Memoirs of Loy W. Hendersen (review)

BOOK REVIEWS James Lloyd Glucksman, editor Baer, G.W., ed., A Question of Trust ....................... 272 Bahry, D., Outside Moscow ................................. 273 Bennett, J., The Hunger Machine ........................... 274 Bonner, A., Among the Afghans ............................ 276 Celmer, M.A., Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies .. .277 Clough, R.N., Embattled Korea ............................. 279 Farnsworth and Mozolin, Contract Law in the USSR and the United States ........................................... 280 Feld, W.J., Arms Control and the Atlantic Community ......... 282 Frost, E. L., For Richer, For Poorer .......................... 283 Garthoff, R. L., Policy Versus the Law ....................... 285 Holmes, M., et. al., British Security Policy and the Atlantic Alliance ................................................ 286 Katzenstein, PJ. , Policy and Politics in West Germany ......... 288 LaPalombara, J., Democracy, Italian Style ................... 289 Riddell, R.C, Foreign Aid Reconsidered ..................... 290 Ronning and Vannucci, Ambassadors in Foreign Policy ........ 292 Wiarda and Falcoff, The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America ........................... 294 271 272 SAIS REVIEW A Question of Trust: The Origins of U.S.-Soviet Relations: The Memoirs of Loy W. Hendersen. Edited by George W. Baer. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986. 579 pp. $44.95/cloth. Reviewed by James Voorhees, Ph.D. candidate, SAIS. The men who opened the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1934 were extraordinary. Two of them, George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, should be familiar to all who have studied relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the decades that followed. In their memoirs both men effusively praise Loy Hendersen , who was their boss in 1934 and who came to play no small part in the diplomacy of the United States. A Question of Trust is Hendersen's account of those formative years in the U.S.-Soviet relationship. Hendersen began his career as an officer in the Red Cross after World War I. Sent to the Baltic coast in 1919, he witnessed the birth of Lithuania and Latvia in the midst of confusion as German armies retreated, Russian soldiers were repatriated, mercenary armies burst forward and collapsed, patriot armies triumphed, White Russian armies disintegrated, and the shadow of the Bolsheviks was felt everywhere. Hendersen joined the Foreign Service almost by accident. After being posted in Ireland during the formation ofthat republic, he became involved with East European affairs in Washington and later in Riga, which served as a window on Russia in the 1920s. He was in Washington again in 1933, when diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union was negotiated, and was posted to Moscow in 1934 as a last-minute replacement. In 1938 he returned to Washington to serve as chief of the State Department's East European Area through 1942. Because of his proximity to events, Hendersen gives an account of U.S.Soviet relations in the 1930s that is indispensable. The memoirs, which benefit from excerpts of working documents (by Hendersen and others) clearly portray the perceptions of U.S. policymakers at the time. In Hendersen's view the Soviets (commissar of foreign affairs Litvinov in particular) failed to follow through on certain agreements made to gain American recognition. In one case, when the Comintern met on Soviet soil in 1935, with U.S. communists on prominent display, the perceived violation was taken so seriously that a break in relations was considered. It now seems somewhat naive to have expected the Soviets to behave otherwise, but such collisions of American values and Soviet policies helped form the views that guided Hendersen, Kennan, and other architects of U.S. foreign policy. Hendersen also describes the increasing fear felt by Muscovites as the Great Purge ran its course. He sat behind Karl Radek at the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev and "noted the red flush that crept up the back of his neck" when his name was first mentioned by a defendant. (Radek was tried and convicted several months later.) Many of Hendersen's portraits of the men he worked with are valuable. Litvinov seemed to him vain and somewhat churlish; others have pictured him in a far more flattering light. To Hendersen, a thirty-year-old Gromyko was shy, awkward, persistent, and unemotional. AmbassadorJoseph Davies, famed BOOK REVIEWS 273 for his blindness to Stalin's dark side, fares slightly better in this account than elsewhere, partly...

Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies (review)

Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies (review)

Terrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies.Marc. A. Celmer

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsTerrorism, U.S. Strategy, and Reagan Policies. Marc. A. CelmerMichael M. GunterMichael M. Gunter Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 50, Number 2May, 1988 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2131807 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright 1988 University of Texas PressPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Duty and discretion in a wayward agency: The U.S. environmental protection agency implementation of the hazardous waste laws

In the early 1980s the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Anne (Gorsuch) Burford became a battleground between President Reagan's appointees and the career civil servants. The new administration wanted to ease the regulatory burden, cooperate with industry, and reduce inflationary costs. The civil servants wanted to continue the existing policies of the Carter administration, or as they saw it, to implement the laws. The hazardous waste program, headed by Rita Lavelle, serves as a case study of the tension between the agency's duty (to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) and the administrative discretion to carry out President Reagan's policy.

A Review: Estimating the Concentration of Wealth in America

In 1986, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress released a study indicating a sharp increase in the concentration of wealth in America. The committee estimated that the richest .5% of families held 25% of the wealth in 1963; by 1983, this proportion had risen to 35%. These findings came from Surveys of Consumer Finances (SCF) conducted by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center (SRC). The surveys were based on household samples, supplemented by samples of very rich persons selected by the Internal Revenue Service. Shortly after the report was released, the finding for 1983 was found to be in error. One respondent, who had received a very large weight in the analysis, had $200 million of wealth attributed to him when the correct figure was $2 million. When the figure was corrected, the estimated share of wealth held by the richest .5% dropped to 27%. The error was announced shortly after the release of the report, but many commentators had already offered opinions concerning President Reagan's economic policies. Even as recently as June 1987, the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture criticized the Reagan philosophy of greed and stated that fifteen years ago, the richest one percent of American families held 27 percent of the nation's wealth; today they are approaching and may soon surpass the 36 percent peak share attained in 1929 (Hightower, 1987). The error matters because it affects an important debate. Its magnitude is similar to the error committed by the Literary Digest (1936) when it underestimated Roosevelt's share of the vote in the 1936 presidential election by 20% and predicted that he would lose to Landon. Explanations for both errors have focused on survey procedures. For the Digest, blame is cast upon a poor sampling frame and low response rate (Freedman, Pisani, and Purves, 1978:302-304). For the wealth estimate, blame is given to an interviewer error (Smith, 1986).

A Response to Jeffrey Sedgwick

Previous articleNext article No AccessPolity Forum: Has Reaganomics Worked?A Response to Jeffrey SedgwickMichael ComiskeyMichael Comiskey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Polity Volume 20, Number 2Winter 1987 The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/3234787 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1987 Northeastern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Closest of Enemies (review)

230 SAIS REVIEW published before the recent Iranian arms scandal came to light, it stands to the author's credit that his final guidelines are still appropriate. He sees recent U.S. diplomatic errors as a product of American misunderstanding of Iran combined with a polarized geopolitical outlook. Iran and its neighbors do not fit into a "good guy-bad guy" scenario. Iran still remains a geopolitical prize, with the Persian Gulf to the south and the Soviet Union to the north. Thus, the United States cannot afford to generate further animosity with the Islamic state. According to Ramazani, it is in the U.S. interest to discard old misconceptions and adopt a new, more pragmatic approach to handling tensions in the gulf. Revolutionary Iran provides an informative analysis of the current scenario in the region as well as a set of sound suggestions for a new and long overdue approach. Foreign-policy makers and scholars alike would do well to read it. The Closest of Enemies. By Wayne S. Smith. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987. 308 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by Angelo Capozzi, M.A. candidate, SAIS. In August of 1982 Wayne Smith resigned from his post as head of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba. His action was in protest of the Reagan administration's foreign-policy initiatives in Cuba and in the rest of Latin America since 1981. Smith's foreign-service career thus came to a premature end after twenty-five years of distinguished diplomacy, representing the United States in Cuba, the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Argentina. The Closest ofEnemies is not only a history of twenty-eight years of U.S.Cuban relations; it is also a personal account of U.S. foreign policy toward the Castro regime that asks pointed questions about the current direction and purpose of that policy as it relates to Latin America and beyond. The book begins with an account of Smith's early years as a junior foreign-service officer in Cuba during the final days of president Fulgencio Batista. The author provides a rare eyewitness account of the historic march of Castro's forces into Havana. The story continues with the uncertain first year of the revolution and Castro's steady drift leftward, followed by the termination of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States in 1961. The following sixteen years of diplomatic "divorce" were the low point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Smith eloquendy discusses developments inside and outside of Cuba during those critical years when U.S. policy was implemented without the advice of diplomats in Cuba. PresidentJimmy Carter's opening to Castro in 1977 led to Wayne Smith's reacquaintance with Cuba through his involvement in the negotiations over maritime boundaries with that country. In 1979 he finally returned to Cuba as head of the United States Interests Section. Once there Smith dealt with a variety of divisive issues, highlighted by Castro's prisoner release program and the famous Mariel sea lift in the summer of 1980. But Smith's growing disen- BOOK REVIEW 231 chantment with Reagan administration policy led to his resignation from the State Department in 1982. In spite of his antagonistic feelings toward Reagan's policies, Smith's approach to Cuba is pragmatic; he stresses that the gulf between the United States and Cuba is wide and will remain so. He accounts for the U.S. "collective selfimage " when he asserts that "Cuba's revolutionary ethos clashes with the American quest for stability and world order." Nevertheless, Smith sees a possibility for significant improvement in relations between the two historical enemies. Castro has come to realize that a modus vivendi with the United States would better serve his interests. The author maintains that a conciliatory approach would also make sense for the United States. Surely, we can learn to deal more openly with Cuba as we deal with the Soviet Union. Easing U.S. -Cuban tensions might also benefit efforts to resolve the crisis in Central America, as both countries appear to have a stake in the region's future. Smith concludes that the key failure in U.S. diplomacy with Cuba over the...

The Policy and Premises of Urban Development Action Grant Program Implementation: A Comparative Analysis of the Carter and Reagan Presidencies

ABSTRACT: This article sketches the key dimensions of the pattern of politics which characterized the Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) program during the Carter presidency and compares and contrasts that with the pattern which has emerged during the Reagan years. The article suggests strongly that Reagan policy initiatives have quickened a shift in the politics of the program away from an emphasis on targeting to defined need toward a more distributional focus. The article highlights some of the reasons for that shift, analyzes the vehicle by which it has been accomplished, and traces its implications for administrative implementation of the program.

The Presidency, Democratic Reform, and Constitutional Change

Recent events have rendered the politics and governance of the American presidency a source of scorn and derision. While the nation seeks to come to terms with problems of the most serious magnitude in domestic and foreign affairs, the incumbent of the nation's highest office is crippled by a byzantine arms scandal. Moreover, the candidacy of the opposition's “front-runner” for the 1988 presidential nomination has been derailed by a scandal sufficiently salacious to displace as the focus of the media's attention the first week of congressional hearings that are investigating the Iran-Contra affair.These developments represent an extraordinarily sharp shift in perceptions about the state of the presidency and American politics. Until the Iran-Contra revelations, many statesmen and scholars credited the Reagan Administration with suspending the paralysis that seemed to grip the nation during the post-Watergate years. For example, a survey of political scientists carried out by theNational Journalin 1985 revealed that even many scholars who opposed Reagan's policies granted that the president had shown impressive leadership ability in dominating the government's agenda and mastering the Congress (National Journal, April 6, 1985, 743–747). Yet the Iran-Contra affair has apparently spoiled the Reagan legacy, belying the prospects for an enduring restoration of the presidency and a renewed sense of national purpose. The rapid demise of Senator Hart's candidacy reaffirmed that presidential politics was once again mired in issues of personality and institutional disarray. Indeed, the extreme scrutiny of Hart's “private” activities highlighted the ongoing lack of commitment in American politics to apublicphilosophy, as well as the absence of institutional strength necessary to cultivate and sustain a coherent sense of national purpose (Brinkley, 1987).

Western Europe and the Reagan Doctrine

The Reagan Doctrine has become a major source of controversy in American politics. That it is also the cause of considerable disagreement within the Western alliance as a whole has been less widely noted. No West European state has joined the US administration in its policy of providing military assistance to rebels in Nicaragua, Cambodia and Angola; and only Britain has (apparently) joined in providing assistance to the rebel forces in Afghanistan. Some European governments have been openly critical. Even the British government, the European administration which has been most supportive of President Reagan's policies, expressed public dissent from the decision of Congress in the summer of 1986 to increase support for the Contras against the Nicaraguan government; and Sir Geoffrey Howe, the British Foreign Secretary, has recently more pointedly declared his belief in the need for a 'peaceful solution' to the Nicaraguan problem. These differences, though not yet highly publicized, could become a source of considerable embarrassment to the Western alliance in the Reagan administration's remaining term of office. This article attempts to set out the prevailing view among West European governments on this issue, one that is held by many conservative as well as more left-wing administrations. This outlook is based partly on a point of principle: the conviction that military assistance to rebel groups in other countries is contrary to the currently accepted rules of the international community. But it is based far more on pure pragmatism: the belief that those policies are unlikely to succeed. Let us examine the issue of principle first. Few questions in international politics have been so bitterly disputed as the propriety of intervention in civil wars elsewhere. Under traditional international law governments were held to be under a 'duty', when rebels acquired control of a substantial part of a national territory, to recognize the 'belligerency' of the insurgents. Once this recognition was granted, they were under a obligation to provide no assistance to either side. Recognition of that kind was usually highly unwelcome to a government fighting a rebellion. Not only did it deprive it of the possibility of receiving active assistance; it accorded a recognized status to the rebellious faction. For this reason the British government caused great offence to the US Federal government by recognizing the belligerency of both parties in the American Civil War and thereafter adopting a position of neutrality. A later British government caused equal offence to the Republican government in Spain in the 1930s by adopting a position of 'non-intervention' and hence neutrality at a time when Hitler and Mussolini were actively assisting Franco's rebel forces. Since 1945 these old rules have been largely abandoned. No government now ever formally recognizes the 'belligerency' of a rebel force, so committing itself to strict