Reagan's grand strategy was never to negotiate with the Soviets until he could do so from a position of strength. Kerry thought this folly: "The Soviet Union is not going to bargain with the United States from a position in which we have grabbed the upper hand through the development of some new technology." To complete his perfect record of wrongness, he criticized Reagan's missile-defense initiative -- "a dream based on illusion, but one which could have real and terrible consequences" -- that helped make the Soviets realize they could never keep up with the United States technologically.
Kerry, naturally, has flip-flopped on Reagan during his current campaign. In the Democratic primaries last year, he spoke of Reagan as a nasty force that he was right to oppose: "I'm proud that I stood against Ronald Reagan, not with him, when his intelligence agencies were abusing the Constitution of the United States and when he was running an illegal war in Central America." It is only now -- when it is convenient to try to erase his long record of dovishness -- that Kerry invokes Reagan positively.
It is Bush, of course, who has the national-security policy organically connected to Reagan's, featuring the same strength of purpose and moral resolve. The connections are brilliantly illuminated in the new feature film documentary on how Reagan won the Cold War, "In the Face of Evil" (www.inthefaceofevil.com). Defeating a vicious enemy involves much, much more than "building alliances," something Kerry didn't understand then and apparently doesn't understand now.