"So with the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly obvious that there was no basis upon which any decision was being made, not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress"
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The barb here isn’t about ideology losing its grip; it’s about governance losing its compass. Malcolm Wallop, a hardline Cold Warrior by temperament and résumé, is diagnosing a Washington addicted to the clarity of a binary enemy. Strip away the Soviet Union and, in his telling, the national security state doesn’t mature into nuance - it drifts. The line “increasingly obvious” frames the failure as visible, almost embarrassingly so, implying that elites kept performing certainty long after the stage props had been removed.
The phrase “no basis upon which any decision was being made” is deliberately sweeping. Wallop isn’t accusing the White House of choosing the wrong basis; he’s accusing it of having none. That exaggeration is strategic: it recasts post-Cold War pragmatism as something darker than improvisation - an institutional vacuum. Then he tightens the vise with the nested indictment: “not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.” It’s a shot at executive dominance and legislative passivity at once. Congress doesn’t merely fail; it follows.
Context matters. In the early 1990s, U.S. foreign policy was searching for a new organizing story: humanitarian interventions, “engagement,” and economic globalization were competing scripts. For Wallop, that pluralism reads as incoherence, even decadence. The subtext is a warning: without an external threat to discipline priorities, leaders will substitute process for purpose, optics for strategy. It’s also a nostalgic claim about the Cold War’s hidden utility - not moral clarity, but managerial clarity - and a pointed attempt to shame institutions back into a more hard-edged, doctrine-driven posture.
The phrase “no basis upon which any decision was being made” is deliberately sweeping. Wallop isn’t accusing the White House of choosing the wrong basis; he’s accusing it of having none. That exaggeration is strategic: it recasts post-Cold War pragmatism as something darker than improvisation - an institutional vacuum. Then he tightens the vise with the nested indictment: “not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.” It’s a shot at executive dominance and legislative passivity at once. Congress doesn’t merely fail; it follows.
Context matters. In the early 1990s, U.S. foreign policy was searching for a new organizing story: humanitarian interventions, “engagement,” and economic globalization were competing scripts. For Wallop, that pluralism reads as incoherence, even decadence. The subtext is a warning: without an external threat to discipline priorities, leaders will substitute process for purpose, optics for strategy. It’s also a nostalgic claim about the Cold War’s hidden utility - not moral clarity, but managerial clarity - and a pointed attempt to shame institutions back into a more hard-edged, doctrine-driven posture.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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