Kiron K. Skinner, Serhiy Kudelia, Condoleezza Rice: Politics Starts at the Water’s Edge
[Kiron K. Skinner is a professor of history and political science at Carnegie Mellon and a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Serhiy Kudelia is a graduate student at Johns Hopkins. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a professor of politics at New York University and a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Condoleezza Rice is the secretary of state. They are the authors of “The Strategy of Campaigning,” from which this article is adapted.]
IT is rare for world leaders to be selected on the basis of their foreign policy acumen or experience. Most leaders are chosen over rivals because of skills in domestic politics.
Consequently, those who shape international affairs are best understood first as politicians and only later perhaps as statesmen. Understanding how leaders come to and stay in office is far more important to our grasp of major events in international politics than traditional ideas about the balance of power or polarity.
Ronald Reagan’s successes illustrate this central claim. Mr. Reagan needed to run on a peace plan in 1980: a telephone survey taken by the Gallup Poll during the primaries had found that 46 percent of those questioned thought President Jimmy Carter would be more likely to keep the country out of war, while 31 percent thought Mr. Reagan would. Despite widespread expectations that he would favor abandonment of nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviets, Mr. Reagan in fact supported continued talks, although under revised terms.
Mr. Reagan’s proposals in 1980 fundamentally challenged conventional economic and strategic assumptions. Mr. Reagan told voters that American leaders, including President Carter, had for decades completely misunderstood the cold war. But Mr. Reagan’s masterstroke was to present himself as a man of peace.
Mr. Reagan told voters that they should separate his strategy of rearmament from his objective of mutual cooperation with the Soviet Union. This was the heart of his interpretation of the conservative slogan “peace through strength.” While Mr. Carter labored to appear strong on defense, Mr. Reagan presented a more muted version of his own foreign policy and defense plans. Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars gathering in Chicago on Aug. 18, 1980, he expressed in peaceful terms his call for a military buildup.
“Actually, I’ve called for whatever it takes to be so strong that no other nation will dare violate the peace,” Mr. Reagan said. “World peace must be our No. 1 priority. It is the first task of statecraft to preserve peace so that brave men need not die in battle. But it must not be peace at any price. It must not be a peace of humiliation and gradual surrender.”...
Radical, extraordinary changes in foreign policy can result from political campaigns that are run largely on domestic issues. Along with Mr. Reagan’s 1980 campaign, Boris Yeltsin’s focus on internal Soviet and Russian questions during his campaigns from 1989 to 1991 nonetheless catalyzed the end of the cold war. Domestic political maneuvering, more than grand strategy, contributed to the most important international political change of the latter half of the 20th century — and arguably, of modern hist
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IT is rare for world leaders to be selected on the basis of their foreign policy acumen or experience. Most leaders are chosen over rivals because of skills in domestic politics.
Consequently, those who shape international affairs are best understood first as politicians and only later perhaps as statesmen. Understanding how leaders come to and stay in office is far more important to our grasp of major events in international politics than traditional ideas about the balance of power or polarity.
Ronald Reagan’s successes illustrate this central claim. Mr. Reagan needed to run on a peace plan in 1980: a telephone survey taken by the Gallup Poll during the primaries had found that 46 percent of those questioned thought President Jimmy Carter would be more likely to keep the country out of war, while 31 percent thought Mr. Reagan would. Despite widespread expectations that he would favor abandonment of nuclear arms control negotiations with the Soviets, Mr. Reagan in fact supported continued talks, although under revised terms.
Mr. Reagan’s proposals in 1980 fundamentally challenged conventional economic and strategic assumptions. Mr. Reagan told voters that American leaders, including President Carter, had for decades completely misunderstood the cold war. But Mr. Reagan’s masterstroke was to present himself as a man of peace.
Mr. Reagan told voters that they should separate his strategy of rearmament from his objective of mutual cooperation with the Soviet Union. This was the heart of his interpretation of the conservative slogan “peace through strength.” While Mr. Carter labored to appear strong on defense, Mr. Reagan presented a more muted version of his own foreign policy and defense plans. Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars gathering in Chicago on Aug. 18, 1980, he expressed in peaceful terms his call for a military buildup.
“Actually, I’ve called for whatever it takes to be so strong that no other nation will dare violate the peace,” Mr. Reagan said. “World peace must be our No. 1 priority. It is the first task of statecraft to preserve peace so that brave men need not die in battle. But it must not be peace at any price. It must not be a peace of humiliation and gradual surrender.”...
Radical, extraordinary changes in foreign policy can result from political campaigns that are run largely on domestic issues. Along with Mr. Reagan’s 1980 campaign, Boris Yeltsin’s focus on internal Soviet and Russian questions during his campaigns from 1989 to 1991 nonetheless catalyzed the end of the cold war. Domestic political maneuvering, more than grand strategy, contributed to the most important international political change of the latter half of the 20th century — and arguably, of modern hist