Strategic Patience Done Right

Key lessons from the Cold War

On Friday, June 12, 1987, nearly forty years ago, Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and gave the speech of the Cold War:

President Von Weizsäcker has said, “The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed.” Well today—today I say: As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.

While no one knew the Soviet Union was nearing collapse—it would go extinct in 1991, just four years later—the Brandenburg Gate speech given in 1987 marked a pivotal moment in American strategic patience in how it handled the Soviet Union and its allies and partners.