Soviet and American identities had four major similarities or parallelisms, but they heightened rather than dampened the conflict. First, each implied a form ofuniversalism in that there was nothing unique about the country that meant its values could not spread. Some countries do have identities that are bounded in this way. Thus, while the British believe they have a distinctive and highly valued way of life that has much to offer others, they do not expect the world ever to be entirely British. But for somewhat different reasons, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union felt this way: both were founded not on nationality or myths of blood and common heritage, but on ideas. The United States is famously a country of immigrants, one in which it was possible to be "un-American" by believing incorrect ideas. For the Soviets, universalism was built into the ideology from the start. There was nothing particularly Russian about Marxism, and indeed the triumph of this doctrine in a backward country was regarded as a fluke. Indeed, for the Soviets, and to a lesser extent the Americans, the validity of the founding principles would be upheld only if they triumphed elsewhere.
Second and relatedly, both the United States and the Soviet Union saw themselves as the standard-bearers ofprogress and modernity. It was taken for granted that historical advancement is real and that while there might be setbacks, other peoples would eventually follow the same path that they did. Furthermore, within the world and within each country, there were progressive and regressive forces, and the former deserved encouragement if not active support.
Third, in a break from traditional European thinking about international politics, both the Soviet and the American ideologies implied that states’ foreign policies were deeply influenced by their domestic systems. In the framework of Kenneth Waltz, they were "second-image" thinkers.15 A balance of power might temporarily yield peace and security, but because of the primary role of the nature of the domestic regime, the world could be made safe for democracy (for the United States) or for Communism (for the Soviet Union) only if it became dominant if not universal throughout the world.
Finally, perhaps because the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the result of revolutions, each was prone to expect and seek transformations of politics. For the USSR, the nature of the class struggle meant that gradual change was unlikely. Politics was not about small advantages and adjustments of interests, but about the basic question of Kto-Kogo - who-whom, who is going to dominate and who is going to be dominated. Transformationism was not as prominent an element in the American worldview, but President George W. Bush did not have to conjure it up from nowhere. As Steven Sestanovich has argued, during the Cold War the United States often reacted to setbacks not by limiting its goals or adjusting its tactics, but by seeking major changes, and this approach had deep roots in American history.16
These similarities created a malign environment. Most fundamentally, they meant that while temporary agreements were possible, especially to minimize the danger of war, deep and long-run cooperation was not. A second-image view of international politics implies that the international conflict can end only when the other’s fundamental beliefs and domestic arrangements change.17
One shared belief restrained conflict, however, and indeed may have saved the world from war. Each side believed that time was on its side, and that if war could be avoided, the long term would bring not only survival but victory. The most dangerous combination of beliefs is short-run optimism coupled with long-run pessimism, which gives great impetus to preventive wars; fortunately, most of the Cold War was characterized by long-run optimism even as predictions about the short-run oscillated.
As important as these similarities are four asymmetries between Soviet and American identities. First, Soviet identity came from the top down, and it remains unclear exactly how much of it was adopted by the population at large. This made Soviet leaders wary of permitting contact between their citizens and outsiders, and indeed their worries were well founded. Second, the American identity was much less self-conscious than the Soviet selfimage. The lack of American awareness gave a certain flexibility to policy and a resilience to its sense of self. Third, Soviet identity pivoted not on what Soviet society was, but what it could be, and, relatedly, on what it should lead the world to be. American identity, although also looking to the future, was based on a view of what American society actually was (of course an idealized one). Because the Soviet identity represented beliefs about what would develop, it could lead to grave disappointments. Fourth, Soviet identity grew out of an explicit ideology, one that both predated the Soviet state and was formed in explicit opposition to capitalism, the main force it would confront during the Cold War. American identity developed more slowly, and, although it could readily be pressed into service against the Soviet Union, originated in differentiation from Europe, and especially Britain, which was seen as tyrannical.
Perhaps the most important implication of the asymmetries was that domestic reverses and the failure of the world to move in desired directions would be corrosive to the Soviet regime and identity. This also helps explain what I think is the fact that the American identity was left relatively unscathed by the Cold War. This conflict left its mark on US domestic society, politics, and economy, but sense of self was altered relatively little. Hartz hoped that its encounter with the world in the Cold War would lead the United States to better understand itself and the range of social processes operating in the world. This turned out not to be the case, however.
World History
