Richard Perle is a prominent neoconservative foreign policy strategist who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Reagan and later chaired the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and has been an influential voice on national security and defense policy for decades. He contributed to The Weekly Standard with a reflection on Cold War-era figures and strategy.
IN HIS LAST AND MOST important public service, Caspar W. Weinberger, Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense, was at his best. People who didn't understand him were puzzled that the budget-cutting, streamlining manager, who had come to be known as "Cap the Knife," could shovel money for national…