{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.029885057471264367, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009195402298850575, 'mean_word_length': 5.266187050359712, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
“Peace, Yes, but World Freedom as Well”: Principle, Pragmatism, and the End of the Cold War

Ronald Reagan's role in closing out the Cold War remains controversial. Perspectives alternatively dismiss him as peripheral or dangerous, celebrate him as a “Cold Warrior,” or credit cautious pragmatism in his second term for inducing Soviet reform and eventual collapse. This essay offers a rhetorical analysis of Reagan's 1987 and 1988 National Security Strategy (NSS) documents that both challenges and reconciles such views. The key terms of the NSSs reveal a “both/and” perspective that creatively blended both principle and pragmatism in Reagan's worldview and policies, not simply his rhetoric. Such a perspective is necessary to understand the relationship between principle and pragmatism in rhetoric and to more clearly evaluate Reagan's role in ending the Cold War.