Take Some Cues From the Cold War, Mr. President

In his efforts to persuade Americans to stay the course in the war on terror ism , President Bush often likens that struggle to the Cold War: The terrorists are like the Communists, "followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has expansionist ambitions, and pursues totalitarian aims." He argues that in the long run, "like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail."

The president is right about that, but he doesn't seem to understand the most important part of his own analogy, which is that the Cold War wasn't really a war at all. Whereas real wars are won or lost on blood-soaked battlefields, the Cold War was decided in the hearts and minds of those who waged it. It wasn't about destroying hostile armies but about discrediting misguided dreams. We had to maintain our military strength, but ultimately we were able to prevail only when the enemy's ideology collapsed.

The Cold War analogy has real implications for fighting terror ism, but you wouldn't know it from observing U.S. policy. Bush may speak as though he believes we're in a battle of ideas, but he wages the "war on terror" as if it were a traditional conflict, in which military force matters more than moral authority and allied support. After trying that approach for six years, and with U.S. intelligence agencies now reporting that the al- Qaeda threat is growing, it's time Bush started acting on the lessons of his own analogy.

Here are four Cold War lessons for today:

Containment Works. In his famous "Long Telegram" from Moscow in 1946, American diplomat George F. Kennan offered the fundamental insight that the United States needed a policy that lay somewhere between launching World War III and capitulating to the Soviets. Communism was an insidious threat, but that threat could be managed by maintaining a vigorous defense and making efforts to win over the world's population -- and eventually the Soviets themselves.

Kennan's argument for a long-term strategy of "patient but firm and vigilant containment" was the opposite of Vice President Cheney's reckless doctrine that says that if there is a 1 percent chance of terrorists acquiring a weapon of mass destruction, then the United States should act as if it is a certainty. Instead, containment was based on the view that living with and trying to reduce risk can sometimes be better than seeking to eliminate it, an insight that would have served Bush well in 2003.

When first proposed, containment was widely condemned as capitulation, and some critics went so far as to advocate preventive war. Fortunately, however, wise leaders such as President Dwight D. Eisenhower understood, as he put it in 1953, that "the colossal job of occupying the territories of the defeated enemy would be far beyond the resources of the United States at the end of such a war."

For decades, critics from John Foster Dulles in the 1950s to Richard Perle and Paul D. Wolfowitz in the 1970s called for a more assertive and militarized approach to the Cold War. But none of these critics ever offered serious alternatives to Kennan's essentially defensive -- and ultimately successful -- strategy. Living with the Soviet threat was no fun for anyone, but doing so avoided World War III until communism collapsed.

Today, containment means defending against terrorist attacks; capturing terrorists with police, intelligence and judicial means; and using military force only when it is likely to reduce the number of enemies we face. And it means demonstrating confidence that in the long run the terrorists are, as Bush says, "doomed to fail" -- as long as we don't inadvertently help them.

Values Are Weapons. The Cold War also taught us that preserving the virtues of our own society is a crucial tool in defeating an enemy ideology. For Kennan, maintaining the "health and vigor of our own society" would be critical. "The greatest danger that can befall us," he warned, "is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping." Kennan was not thinking of issues such as detaining prisoners indefinitely without charge, refusing to rule out torture, wiretapping without warrants or insisting on almost unlimited presidential powers -- but he may as well have been.