19
of continuous and contentious debate.
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Should the US have concluded from these facts
that the Soviets were bent on world domination and thus responded aggressively and
confrontationally? Or should the US have assumed instead that the Soviets were as afraid
of US military might as we were of theirs and sought instead to cooperate? A
“disinterested” analyst could not answer the key questions: how scared should we be and
how should we respond to a powerful adversary when we don’t know what they will do?
The Reagan team, however, with a worldview that defined communism as an immoral
and dangerous political system, was readily able to answer the question. The ad explicitly
admitted that in fact the truth could not be known. Instead, it promoted a position on
national defense based on Reagan’s view of the world and appealed for support from
those who shared it.
Finally, this alternate conception of the marketplace also suggests that the very
definition of national security, and thus of a security threat, might be very different
depending on one’s worldview. Scholarship over the past twenty years has shown that
some people hold a very narrow notion of national security that defines threats only as
direct military threats against the US homeland. Others, however, carry around a very
broad notion of national security that includes quality of life elements such as
unemployment levels and environmental protection, or ‘the American way of life.’
38
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, has recently articulated an expansive
37
For a review of the debate during the first Reagan administration see for example Barry R. Posen and
Stephen Van Evera, “Defense Policy and the Reagan Administration: Departure from Containment,”
International Security, Vol. 8, No. 1, Summer 1983, pp. 3-45
38
Excellent discussions of these competing notions of national security include Barry R. Posen and Andrew
L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3, Winter
1996-97, pp. 5-53; Wittkopf, Faces of Internationalism; Joseph S. Nye, The Paradox of American Power:
Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press 2002)
Convention