How many empires suddenly collapse by themselves? Very rate in history. Regan's military buildup and pressure certainly cause some effect on them. Let's see Reagan's positions: -Supported free trade -Lowered income tax rates to reasonable levels (from like 70% or whatever) -Saw communism as a failure -Knew the negative effects overregulation had on the economy -Supported a strong military. -Thought reform of entitlements programs was a good idea. We take all of these things for granted now. Back then they were bitterly contested.
Oski2005: That was probably because they didn't want one of their liquid-fuelled, and highly volatile, missiles going off in the parade and killing the entire Politburo. They had plenty of real missiles. pgabriel: The Soviet Union probably was inevitably doomed to fail (and there is no guarantee of that), but there is no telling when it would have failed. It might have carried on another 30 years or so. But who is to say what would have happened then? Or during the period before it fell? The Cold War was a series of "smaller" wars (Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua, Angola, Afghanistan, etc) punctuated by terrifying situations where the two superpowers nearly went at it. Who is to say that, had the USSR survived another 20 or 30 years, there would not have been more "small" wars? Or that a misstep by one party would have caused a nuclear war? Or that under another President, a dying USSR would not have decided to go out with a bang, since it had nothing to lose? Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, and that is the beauty of it. Had it happened at a later date with another President, we might not have been so lucky.
He allowed Saddam Hussein to buy chemical and biological agents from the US and sent Rumsfeld over to Iraq twice to facilitate the sale of conventional weapons. He turned the collective head of the US government while Saddam gassed the Iranians and the Kurds. We are now collectively paying for Reagan's idiotic foreign policies with American lives and money. As previously mentioned Reagan had little to do with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.
I think perhaps the more relevant question is was reagan an effective president. Good, great, etc. are qualities that can be endlessly debated depending on which side of the ideological divide you reside. on the question of whether he was effective though, the answer is unquestionably yes, and in a way unmatched by either his immediate predecessor or any of his successors (jury's still out on GWB). His role in winning the cold war can't be ignored. lowering the maximum tax rate changed our whole tax code. yes, it temporarily raised the deficit, but it also laid the foundation for the economic boom that WJC likes to take credit for. lastly, he genuinely made people proud to be americans again. in the wake of the vietnam war, watergate, and the iranian hostage crisis this cannot be underestimated. he was perhaps the greatest presidential leader since FDR. i'm not saying he was as great a president as FDR, and you may not like where he led us, but his ability to lead was one of his greatest strengths. fyi, i voted for Carter in 1976, John Anderson in 1980, and some other random 3rd party candidate in 1984 (lorna folani?).
Deckard: You "don't buy it"??? (insert roll-eyes here) Woodrow Wilson - October Revolution, Soviets seize power. Also seized Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Calvin Coolidge (OK, a Repub): Soviets add Mongolia, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kirgizia. FDR: Officially recognizes the USSR. Calls Stalin "Uncle Joe". Invites "Uncle Joe" to the US to counter Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech. Soviets take Eastern Poland, Moldavia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Albania. "Uncle Joe" murders about 20 million people on FDR's watch. Truman: Lost China, the most populous nation on earth. Red Chinese occupy Tibet. Soviets take all of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Eastern Germany, Yugoslavia, and North Korea to the 38th parallel. Ho Chi Minh started Communist war in Vietnam on his watch. Eisenhower (another Repub): Fought the NKs to a standstill and defended SK, but lost Cuba to Fidel. JFK: Uh, Bay of Pigs. Cuban Missile Crisis (which never should have happened in the first place), got us involved in Vietnam without a strategy, and without sending necessary force. East Germany finished Berlin Wall. Soviets detonate first hydrogen bomb, largest man-made explosion in history. LBJ: Commie regimes established in S. Yemen and Congo-Brazzaville. China explodes first hydrogen bomb. Nixon: Commie regime established in Benin. Saved Vietnam for a couple of years until Watergate forced his hand, and a Democratic Congress refused to allow US troops to go back and defend that country. Gerry Ford: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fall to Communism. Communist regimes established in Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Ethiopa, and Mozambique. Pol Pot rampages through Cambodia. Carter: Soviets invade Afghanistan, Carter does nothing. Marxists come to power in Nicaragua. Iranians take US hostages after storming US embassy. Carter lifts ban on travel to Cuba and North Korea. Cuba sends a military force to Ethiopa. For about 60+ years here, the Socviet-style communism was in full advance all over the world, and the US did virtually nothing to stop it. And then Reagan came. Buy it or not.
my eyes are bleeding from reading Treemans last post. You're really trying to assign partisan characterizations to US-Russia/Soviet policy for a 90-year period? That's kind of lame. Actually, wait, that's not kind of lame, that's just stupid, given the radical ebbs and flows of political parties in the intervening century. Not only is it dumb, but its not even right. Looking at your first entry, Woodrow Wilson is credited with the begining of the US cold war. He sent troops to Russia for gods sake. http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/wilson.htm BTW, you skipped Herbert Hoover. Not that it makes a difference.
The idea that Reagan spent the USSR into oblivion seems to me to a be a view that sees the USSR as essentially a black box -- or at least a box whose contents have not be examined. The simple truth is that the USSR collapsed under the stress of an attempt at self-reform. That reform was led by Gorbachev who had always been reform-minded even before he became GS (when he headed their dept of agriculture, he was already pushing for changes to make the collectives more responsive to market forces). I think it is true that US-applied pressure encouraged the Politburo to pick a successor to Andropov that was reform-minded. But, I think that was general US pressure of just being around, powerful and efficient, and didn't really require the hawkishness of the particular administration. And even so, by that time, Gorbachev had pretty much solidified a great reputation among them as intelligent, innovative and energetic. He likely would have been chosen -- or was chosen -- on simple merit. The USSR was, at that time, buried in military expense going back many years. One of the things that Gorbachev did was try to reduce that burden by agreeing to arms reductions and cutting expenses (which did alienate some of his support in the government, which came back to haunt him later). I think it was an easy win for Reagan because he could say, "look, I made him do that," but the truth is he was going to do it anyway. The USSR was slowing dying in a thickening sludge of corruption and inefficiency that had been fermenting throught the Brezhnev era. It was Gorbachev's mission when he was appointed to reform and re-energize the country and to do that, he was addressing problems that were decades-old, not something that had happened in the last month. I think that is the problem in general with popular evaluations of presidencies. People talk about an administration as if it could snap its fingers and make stuff happen. The reality is most of these changes are the result of a long-term forces with only a mild effect exerted from government. At best, a president can be only a catalyst for any sudden changes in the fortune of his country. As for whether he was a good president or not, I don't really know. He didn't get us all killed at least (though it wasn't for lack of trying). I think asking the question in a vacuum this way is not a way to find out. If you can look at our whole history with, say, a half-century on each side and evaluate what he really had to work with and what came out the other side, then you can say.
treeman, I should listen to oski. How dare I, indeed, submit an alternative, lucid, well-researched alternative to traditional flag-waving, fearful lore. Have you read the Zinn book? And I don't mean the back cover. It is remarkable, and you can look up all his numbers for yourself, because he has so many references. I happen to not entirely agree with him, because he oversimplifies the Soviet governance and its principles. They arguably needed some old school saber rattling as the rank and file was very old school. But economically? If you think they were "neck and neck" with us for 50 years economically, I think you're very wrong on that one. It's not even close. I'm not going to accuse you of being on a republican leash, because I kind of think I know better, but it sure is tempting sometimes.
OH yes, treeman, you skipped harding too. I'll be expecting a syncophanic glorification of the anti communist policies of the Hoover and Harding administrations within the hour. I think that will take some reading, so get to it.
Treeman, your history may need some scrutiny or at least some fairer characterizations. During Wilson's presidency, Russia was a backwater not worth much worry. No one though the revolution would last. Besides that, we were finishing out World War I against a much more formidable opponent, Germany. Despite that, the US did send some aid to the anti-communist forces during the Russian Civil War. There was no way, though, the US could do more to fight for the tsar, even if Reagan had been in power. Don't know why you're talking about presidents before the Cold War started anyway. Under FDR, the Soviet Union became our ally in World War II because they were betrayed by their former ally, Hitler. We were never very friendly. Even so, we were again too busy with bigger fish, Germany and Japan, to worry about the USSR at that time. And, it is a good thing too since the USSR's help went a long way toward defeating the Nazis. That Stalin conquered parts of eastern europe is no big surprise since that was in the Nazi-Soviet pact part of the war. I'm not sure what you're talking about in saying he invited Uncle Joe to Washington. Besides, FDR died before Churchill's Iron Curtain speech. I don't see how you can credit Truman for 'losing' China. Was the US going to plant itself in the path of a popular revolution in a country with a billion people? And, again, with all the countries that the USSR took, there was not much to be done. Their armies were already installed there because of WWII. There were some that wanted to keep on fighting against the Soviets, but that would have been tremendously costly in money and lives and the country had no will to proceed after making so many sacrifices to defeat Japan and Germany. The revolution in Vietnam was a French issue and the US could not really get involved without an invitation. JFK won the presidency by arguing that he was tough on communism. The Bay of Pigs was a fiasco, but you could see the political will was there in the repeated attempts to overthrow Castro. Same with Vietnam. You certainly can't blame any president for what inventions a foreign government happens to produce. You mentioned the Berlin Wall but neglected the Berlin air lifts after the Soviet blockade. Man, I'm getting tired. But, it seems to me from your accusations that you are not satisfied that any president is tough on communism if they don't openly invite nuclear war with the USSR. Reagan did, I'll give you that. But, from WWII till the end of Vietnam, every US president was forced to put the pressure on the Soviet Union and communism everywhere by the political atmosphere on this country. The idea that these guys were too soft is silly. In my view, the opposite is true: the fought communism where they should have just butted out.
Come on, treeman... I can't believe you posted this. I know you're very intelligent. Talk about picking and choosing bits of history! FDR would have been chummy with the Devil himself to defeat Hitler. Don't you ever watch WWII era movies and their slant praising the Soviet Union? You think that was because of some leftist Hollywood directors? Before WWII, was FDR supposed to take on the USSR with a bankrupt economy and a military that was a shell of what it should be? With Americans wanting nothing more than to stay out of foreign wars and alliances... as isolationist as hell? So Truman was supposed to fight WWIII with exhausted Allies, who were bankrupt and/or just shaking off Nazi occupation? And he lost China?? And he didn't respond to the invasion of South Korea? Hey, Eisenhower left Hungary to the wolves when they revolted... should we vilify him as well? JFK is responsible for Viet Nam?? He should have started WWIII over the Berlin Wall? Cuba?? He took a hell of a risk during the Missile Crisis and risked exactly that. So he was incompetent? The Bay of Pigs was in train from the Eisenhower Administration. JFK learned a lot from that debacle. Have you ever read The Bedford Incident (1963), by Mark Rascovich? It might give you some insight into what was happening back then and just how much on a knife-edge of war we were. I don't have time for more than that, but you really need to relax. Read some more. Take a hot bath. It'll be good for you. Later.
JuanValdez - I seem to recall reading a number of great posts by you on Soviet/Russian history in the past. Add one more to the list. To me, Reagan seems like the fitting president for the time: a cowboy president in an era of excess. It sounds trite, I know. I personally don't think he was a good president, not only from an economic standpoint, but also from a social standpoint, since he nominated a number of supreme court justices, most of whom were driven by ideology (Reagan and GHWBush appointed 7 between the two of them, only one of which has avoided the rightward tilt of hte supreme court, Souter... And he was a Bush appointee, I believe). I think of the 1974-90 era as a less than spectacular time for many Americans, but I admit, much of that has to do with my distaste for conservative social policies and poor fiscal management.
Treeman, if you bought into the propaganda that the Soviet Union was "neck and neck with us for 50 years" you weren't paying attention.
What? Empires (Greek/Macedonians, Romans, Spanish, British, Soviet, etc.), almost always collapse more due to internal failings and corruption than to external events. Gosh, I forgot all those speeches from JFK, LBJ and Carter in the 60s and 70s about how America needs more godless communism to prosper. My vote is Reagan was a very bad president for most Americans. Middle to middle to lower class Americans and the sick (mentally and physically) especially suffered. I think since Reagan's last 2 years in office we have been paying no lower than 12% of federal revenue on the national debt, it got a little better late in GHWB years through Clinton, but now looks worse again (maybe in upwards of 20% in the near future). IMO, GHWB was a much better one than Reagan and at least tried to clean up some of the domestic mess Reagan help create. I actually kind of wish GHWB was the president right now. As for foreign policy, even though it may not have affected most Americans that much, what Reagan and GHWB gave the CIA and military free reign to do in various Central and South American countries was flat immoral and sickening. So while I might credit Reagan's admin with some moves versus fighting terrorism (I would not credit much regarding the Cold War--it fairly obvious to me the Soviets would have imploded because of their economic problems regardless of the US admin from 1980+), don't forget the damage they have done to peoples in our hemisphere.
Just some random thoughts on Reagan... “Stars Wars” missile defense system (aka SDI) James Watt Lebanon policy (allowing Israel's invasion and having US marines take sides in the civil war) Iran-Contra El Salvador So unbalanced the budget that he created a multi-trillion dollar debt legacy (e.g. $1,339,000,000,000 in his 8 years, $1,042,000,000,000 in Bush's) Aided the Guatemala military's genocide of its Mayan population (subverting Congressional bans against military aid to do so)
..so you must be psyched that this week the record deficit became official and we got a new abortion ban!
Unfortunately, I think they all were written to argue with treeman. Obviously, I haven't gotten very far. I spent my college career studying the USSR so I get riled easily. I'm glad someone appreciates the post; I'll try to not let it go to my head.
