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fully let the world know that we are final-
ly dead serious about decisively dealing
with this rogue regime.
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/PSUI,PSFB Such efforts would reas-
sure South Korea, Japan and other Asiannations that we are not abandoning our
post-WWII policy of protecting them
and keeping the peace in the region.
Powerful stuff, this. But kicking the
North Korea can down the road, as we
have done for more than 20 years, is
no longer a viable option.JULY 2017 FORBES ASIA | 11Historians often cite the trio of Ronald
Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret
Thatcher as having played critical roles
in bringing down the evil empire of the
Soviet Union. A fourth name should be
added: Helmut Kohl, who died recently
at age 87.
When Kohl became chancellor in
1982 of what was then West Ger-
many, the Soviet Union was engaged
in an ultra-high-stakes political
offensive to shatter the Western alli-
ance and win the Cold War. Moscow
had developed and then positioned
intermediate-range nuclear missiles
that were aimed primarily at Ger-
many. The goal: to blackmail West
Germany into fatally weakening its
ties to NATO, which would enable
the Soviet Union to dominate Eu-
rope. The threat looked all too real.
If Moscow fired its missiles at Ger-
many, would the U.S. retaliate with a
nuclear attack on the Soviet Union,
risking its own nuclear annihila-
tion? After all, even if we made such
a response, the Soviets would still
be capable of firing off enough of
their missiles to obliterate us. Mos-
cow was betting that its targeting of
Germany with shorter-range rockets
would, for all intents and purposes,
emasculate our nuclear deterrent
and force the West German govern-
ment to cut a deal with Moscow, ef-
fectively becoming a neutral nation
à la Finland.
The obvious response was for the
U.S. to station its own intermediate-
range nuclear missiles in Germanythat could then reach Russia. (We
once had shorter-range missiles sta-
tioned in Turkey, but we had quietly
pulled them out as part of the deal
that settled the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis.) But would Bonn (then the
capital of West Germany) allow those
weapons on German soil? Opposi-
tion—stoked with plentiful amounts of
Soviet cash and fueled by an elabo-
rate Soviet-orchestrated propaganda
campaign—was fierce: “Don’t let our
country become a nuclear wasteland!
Keep American missiles out!”
Chancellor Kohl was having none
of it; there was no more equivocation
like that of his predecessor. He was
firm: Those U.S.
missiles would
be placed on
German soil.
Period. Despite
intense pres-
sure, domesti-
cally and from
Moscow, Kohl
wouldn’t back
down.
Moscow lost
its great gamble,
a setback that was even more damag-
ing than its blinking during the Cuban
missile showdown, because this was
a crucial factor in setting the stage
for the fall of the Berlin Wall several
years later.
Kohl had two other major achieve-
ments during his time in office. One
was the peaceful reunification of his
country after the fall of the Berlin
Wall. The U.S.S.R. wasn’t keen on
Germany’s coming together again,
nor was France or Britain. But Kohl’sdetermination and skillful diplomacy
won the backing of the U.S. and sub-
stantially softened French resistance
(Kohl had worked hard for years to
establish a close relationship with
France’s president, François Mit-
terrand). In the end Kohl not only
merged East Germany with West
Germany, but he also got Moscow to
acquiesce in the new country’s re-
maining in NATO.
The chancellor also pushed hard for
the creation of the euro, even though
Germans wanted to maintain their
beloved deutsche mark. Kohl believed
a unified currency would help further
integrate Germany with the rest of Eu-
rope. He wanted
to do everything
possible to avoid
a repeat of what
had happened
in the first half
of the 20th cen-
tury. He can’t be
blamed for the
fact that most
Europeans today
(and almost
all economists
elsewhere) are embarrassingly clueless
about what constitutes an effective
monetary policy.
Kohl was Germany’s longest-
serving chancellor (1982–98) since
Otto von Bismarck. Kohl reunited
Germany by peaceful means in 1990.
Bismarck achieved the original Ger-
man unification through “blood and
iron,” that is, by cynically engineering
a series of wars with his neighbors.
May Helmut Kohl’s legacy be the
one that triumphs in the future. FCold War’s
Unheralded HeroSF with Helmut Kohl, 1984. It was clear the
German leader wouldn’t buckle under to pressure
from Moscow or domestic demonstrators.