Free Beyond Peace by Richard Nixon

II, the Soviet Union became the principal threat to world peace. As a result, the United States had no choice but to make victory in the Cold War its number-one foreign policy priority.
    Even before the Bolshevik Revolution, the requirements of building and maintaining the empire had a debilitating impact on Russia’s political and economic development. Empire was incompatible with liberalization and democracy. The cost of maintaining a huge standing army was an obstacle to economic growth. The constant provoking of fear and hostility in neighboring countries proved incompatible with Russia’s own security. In the process of empire building, Russia was both aggressor and victim. While enslaving others, the pre-communist Russian empire had isolated and enslaved itself.
    When the communists came to power in 1917, the pattern of Russian imperialism and internal decline went from bad to worse. By the late 1970s, the Soviet empire was so overextended that even its own rulers began to recognize that the costs of expansionism threatened their ability to govern. By 1985, a significant part of the communist nomenklatura was ready to experiment with domestic reform and “new foreign policy thinking.” Mikhail Gorbachev became their standard-bearer.
    Gorbachev sought to reform the Soviet empire in order to save it. Contrary to the illusions of many of his admirers in the West, he wanted to save communism, not abandon it. This was an impossible task. His totalitarian empire, built and sustainedby force and coercion, could not be fundamentally reformed. The crucial flaw in Gorbachev’s thinking was his failure to comprehend the law of history that dictatorial regimes collapse precisely when they begin to relax controls and create expectations they cannot fulfill.
    It was inevitable that, liberated from strict totalitarian controls, the peoples of the Soviet Union would seek to remove from power the communist authorities in Moscow who continued to determine their national destinies. Yeltsin’s unique contribution to Russia and the world was his understanding of this historical fact and his courageous determination to give his people a chance to enjoy political and economic freedom by putting an end, simultaneously, to communism and the empire. As Isaiah Berlin has observed, “Never before has there been an empire that caved without war, revolution, or invasion.”
    Often the demise of old adversaries leads to the emergence of new, sometimes more dangerous challenges rather than to peace and harmony among nations. After the defeat of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires in World War I, Woodrow Wilson and many other idealistic Americans hoped we would have an era of peace under the League of Nations. Instead, the United States was confronted with communism in Russia, fascism in Germany and Italy, militarism in Japan, and ultimately a new global war.
    Our justifiable satisfaction with the end of the Cold War must not obscure the urgent need to address the extremely difficult and contradictory transition in the post-Soviet region. Until this transition culminates in irreversible political and economic freedom and nonaggressive foreign policies, there is the danger that the remnants of the shattered Soviet empire will strike back at the world, with devastating consequences.
    Will Boris Yeltsin be able to continue to provide the leadership Russia needs to achieve the goals of the second Russian revolution—political and economic freedom at home and a nonaggressive foreign policy abroad? History is made by theacts of individuals, and history has placed enormous problems and extraordinary opportunities on President Yeltsin’s agenda.
    No one questions his courage. We all remember his standing on a tank, facing down a group of card-carrying communist killers who were supporting the coup attempt in August 1991. Most would agree that he is a strong leader. He did not hesitate to use the necessary military