Apart from Reagan’s inner circle, no one alive between World War II and the Reagan presidency could have imagined such a magnificent conclusion to the Cold War accomplished with such speed. Reagan was the first authentic conservative in the White House in over fifty years. That’s all it took.

We should, of course, be duly grateful to other American presidents for their feeble and impotent public statements in opposition to Soviet expansionism -- except Jimmy Carter, who was not remotely opposed to Soviet expansionism.

Still, the Soviet Union could have stumbled along for a few more decades, waiting out the Reagan administration and hoping for a Democrat president to come in and help the Soviets restore their hegemony. But Reagan wasn’t going to let the USSR outlast him.