Mid-1970s: Hawks, Neoconservatives Join Forces to Oppose Detente, Arms Control Talks The middle of the 1970s sees a fundamental paradigm shift among American conservatives and some formerly liberal intellectuals.

'Hawks' Disenchanted with Detente - Republican and Democratic “hawks,” defined by author J. Peter Scoblic as relatively conservative “establishment policy makers who played a higher premium on confrontation and the use of military force than did their more ‘dovish’ colleagues,” become more and more disenchanted with the US’s relations with the Soviet Union. They don’t believe that the program of detente—a gradual thawing of relations that foresees the end of the Cold War—has provided the US with any real benefits, but has allowed the USSR to build an enormous military and nuclear stockpile, more than enough to coerce the US into following its wishes. This reflects the mindset of former presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), who had fought negotiations with the USSR since the Eisenhower administration.

Anti-Communist 'Neoconservatives' - On the other side of the debate, a group of formerly liberal intellectuals unhappy with the Democratic Party’s pacifist post-Vietnam foreign policy positions find themselves bringing their militantly anti-Communist views across the aisle to join forces with their former conservative opponents. This group will eventually dub themselves “neoconservatives” (see Late 1930s - 1950s).

Joining Forces - Scoblic will write: “Like sheets of ice calving away from a glacier, the hawks and the neoconservatives fell away into the sea of conservative discontent that had been lapping at Washington’s centrist foreign policy establishment for decades. These converts shared the conservative belief that, in the Soviet Union, the United States faced an ideological enemy with messianic goals. The neoconservatives, particularly, subscribed to the simplistic good-versus-evil, us-versus-them schema that animated the Right. They believed that there were clear sides in the Cold War and worried that Democrats had forgotten this defining principle. The hawks were less moralistic but no less explicit in their assessment of the Soviet threat. They agreed that MAD [the theory of nuclear “mutual assured destruction” that says neither side will risk nuclear war because of the likelihood that both sides will be destroyed] was a choice, that nuclear war fighting was a better strategy, and that negotiation was of little value—and in doing so they effectively accepted the Manichaean worldview that had led conservatives to the same conclusion.

'Systematic Failures' of US Intelligence Community - The neoconservatives in particular bring the view that the US intelligence community has, through incompetence or perhaps outright collusion with the Soviets, systematically underestimated the Soviet threat for years, and their own assessments—based on instinct and political convictions rather than ascertainable data—are inherently more accurate than those of the CIA or the NSA. “In essence,” Scoblic will write, “they argued that the nature of the Cold War was something to be morally intuited, not empirically observed.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 75-76] Entity Tags: J. Peter Scoblic, Barry Goldwater, Eisenhower administration Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence Category Tags: Diplomacy and Geopolitics, Neoconservatives in Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons Treaties, US-Soviet Relations

1980: Israeli Prime Minister Begin Curries Favor of US Televangelist Jerry Falwell Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin seeks to expand his base of influence in the US. Israel has long enjoyed the support of liberal Democrats, so Begin begins reaching out to conservative American evangelicals who, in many cases, espouse anti-Semitic views (see February 1, 1972). But more important to Begin is the fact that these conservative Christians are becoming politically active and powerful. Begin seeks out conservative televangelist and political activist Jerry Falwell, who publicly views the birth of Israel as “the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.” Falwell has often said that the friendship between the US and Israel is a cornerstone both of political stability in the Middle East and a matter of faith. Begin presents Falwell with the prestigious Jabotinsky Award, making Falwell the first non-Jew to ever receive the award. More tangibly, he also gives Falwell’s ministry a private jet. [Unger, 2007, pp. 109] Entity Tags: Menachem Begin, Jerry Falwell Category Tags: US-Israeli Relations

1981-1983: US Launches Military PSYOPS Missions Designed to Agitate, Frighten Soviets The US begins launching what the Pentagon calls “psychological operations,” or PSYOPS, against the USSR. The operations consist in part of military exercises designed to agitate and frighten the USSR into believing the US might be preparing for a military assault. Few outside of the White House and the Pentagon’s top officials—and Soviet officials, of course—know about the series of provocative exercises. Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle will later recall: “It was very sensitive. Nothing was written down about it, so there would be no paper trail.” The idea behind the operations is to keep the Soviets off-balance about what, if anything, the US might do. It also is designed to probe for gaps and vulnerabilities in the Soviets’ early warning intelligence system. General Jack Chain, a Strategic Air Command (SAC) commander, will later recall: “Sometimes we would send bombers over the North Pole and their radars would click on. Other times fighter-bombers would probe their Asian or European periphery.” Sometimes the operations send out several probes in a week, coming at irregular intervals to make the effect that much more unsettling. Then the probes stop, only to begin again several weeks later. Undersecretary of State for Military Assistance and Technology Dr. William Schneider will later recall: “It really got to them. They didn’t know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return home.” The operations include naval incursions as well as aerial missions, with US aircraft carrier groups regularly conducting exercises alarmingly close to Soviet military and industrial sites, often without being detected until the groups are already in place. Some exercises simulate surprise attacks on Soviet targets, sometimes simulating air assaults on Soviet fighter units. The naval pressure is particularly intense in the area of the North Atlantic called the “Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap.” [Fischer, 3/19/2007] Entity Tags: William Schneider Jr., Fred C. Ikle, US Department of Defense, Jack Chain Category Tags: Diplomacy and Geopolitics, US Interventions, US-Soviet Relations