Bush To World - Support Our Policies, Or We Will Deny OuterSpace To You.

Deckard · Oct 18, 2006

halfbreed said:

All your space are belong to us.
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Brilliant!

Keep D&D Civil and Spaced Out.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

rimrocker said:

Those "many" are wrong...
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In Fitzgerald's opinion. Which is itself an opinion (and apparently the first opinion in a google search, lol) not a fact.

Ronald Hilton, Professor at Stanford:

From the outset, Reagan moved against détente and beyond containment, substituting the objective of encouraging “long-term political and military changes within the Soviet empire that will facilitate a more secure and peaceful world order”, according to an early 1981 Pentagon defense guide. Harvard’s Richard Pipes, who joined the National Security Council, advocated a new aggressive policy by which “the United States takes the long-term strategic offensive. This approach therefore contrasts with the essentially reactive and defensive strategy of containment”. Pipes’s report was endorsed in a 1982 National Security Decision Directive that formulated the policy objective of promoting “the process of change in the Soviet Union towards a more pluralistic political and economic system”. [The quotes from Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War.]

A central instrument for putting pressure on the Soviet Union was Reagan’s massive defense build-up, which raised defense spending from $134 billion in 1980 to $253 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP, dramatically increasing the federal deficit. Yet in its efforts to keep up with the American defense build-up, the Soviet Union was compelled in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels.

Reagan’s most controversial defense initiative was SDI, the visionary project to create an anti-missile defense system that would remove the nuclear sword of Damocles from America’s homeland. Experts still disagree about the long-term feasibility of missile defense, some comparing it in substance to the Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars. But the SDI’s main effect was to demonstrate U. S. technological superiority over the Soviet Union and its ability to expand the arms race into space. This helped convince the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev to throw in the towel and bid for a de-escalation of the arms race.

http://wais.stanford.edu/History/history_ussrandreagan.htm

FranchiseBlade · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

Not really. It's more like saying we will deny access to sea lanes to anyone who would attempt to close our use of those sealanes.
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Except this isn't about any closing our access to anything, it is about people who don't agree with U.S. interests. They don't even have to be able to prevent us from doing anything. IT just says if they are hostile to U.S. interests.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

FranchiseBlade said:

Except this isn't about any closing our access to anything, it is about people who don't agree with U.S. interests. They don't even have to be able to prevent us from doing anything. IT just says if they are hostile to U.S. interests.
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I don't think you're putting 'hostile to US interests' in context. In your context it borders on the absurd. We're going to blow up French satellites because they don't agree with us on Iraq? No. That clearly isn't what it's talking about.

rimrocker · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

In Fitzgerald's opinion. Which is itself an opinion (and apparently the first opinion in a google search, lol) not a fact.

Ronald Hilton, Professor at Stanford:

From the outset, Reagan moved against détente and beyond containment, substituting the objective of encouraging “long-term political and military changes within the Soviet empire that will facilitate a more secure and peaceful world order”, according to an early 1981 Pentagon defense guide. Harvard’s Richard Pipes, who joined the National Security Council, advocated a new aggressive policy by which “the United States takes the long-term strategic offensive. This approach therefore contrasts with the essentially reactive and defensive strategy of containment”. Pipes’s report was endorsed in a 1982 National Security Decision Directive that formulated the policy objective of promoting “the process of change in the Soviet Union towards a more pluralistic political and economic system”. [The quotes from Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War.]

A central instrument for putting pressure on the Soviet Union was Reagan’s massive defense build-up, which raised defense spending from $134 billion in 1980 to $253 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP, dramatically increasing the federal deficit. Yet in its efforts to keep up with the American defense build-up, the Soviet Union was compelled in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels.

Reagan’s most controversial defense initiative was SDI, the visionary project to create an anti-missile defense system that would remove the nuclear sword of Damocles from America’s homeland. Experts still disagree about the long-term feasibility of missile defense, some comparing it in substance to the Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars. But the SDI’s main effect was to demonstrate U. S. technological superiority over the Soviet Union and its ability to expand the arms race into space. This helped convince the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev to throw in the towel and bid for a de-escalation of the arms race.

http://wais.stanford.edu/History/history_ussrandreagan.htm
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First, you are obviously a much better Googler than I.

Here's some more...

First, Schweizer erroneously claims that Gorbachev's "perestroika was a consequence of Reagan policy" because "with the Reagan administrations commitment to high-technology systems such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, economic reform became a necessary evil."23 Anyone familiar with the thinking of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov might find such an assertion to be plausible. But actual participants, such as V. V. Shlykov (Department Chief of the Main Intelligence Administration of the Soviet General Staff, 1980-88), Roald Sagdeev, former head of the Soviet Space Research Institute, and Aleksandr Yakovlev, one of Gorbachev's closest advisors, claim otherwise.

According to Shlykov, "The notion that Gorbachev's perestroika was started as a result of Reagan's Star Wars program was concocted in the West and is completely absurd."24 Sagdeev told American Sovietologist, Matthew Evangelista, that SDI had "absolutely zero influence"25 on the origins of perestroika.

When Yakovlev was asked to assess the impact of Reagan's defense spending on the new leadership, he stated that "it played no role. None....Gorbachev and I were ready for changes in our policy regardless of whether the American President was Reagan or Kennedy, or someone even more liberal. It was clear that our military spending was enormous and we had to reduce it....There have been better and smarter Presidents. I can't say that Reagan played a major role..."26

Schweizer correctly notes that Star Wars worried influential individuals within the Soviet military and the scientific community.27 In fact, in 1983 Yuri Andropov authorized the Soviet Union's ongoing investigation into potential ballistic missile defense applications to escalate from Fon-1 (advanced concept and technology development) to Fon-2 (engineering development).28 Nevertheless, some of the Soviet Union's most prominent scientists, such as Yevgenii Velikov and Roald Sagdeev, "quickly focused their attention on the dangers posed by an arms race in space weaponry, including SDI."29

A clear indication that Schweizer's effort is more a political polemic than a serious work of history can be found at the end of his book. The last chapter of his book, discounting the five-page epilogue, ends with the Reykjavik Summit of October 1986. Although Gorbachev had been in power but nineteen months at the time of this historic meeting (and had five more years of rule ahead of him) Schweizer claims that "the Reykjavik Summit proved a watershed meeting in many ways."30

Yet one searches Schweizer's book in vain for the devastating impact of Reykjavik on the Soviet Union. Instead the reader finds suppositions about the impact of Star Wars rather than proof. For example, Schweizer recounts the discussions of John Poindexter (a member of Reagan's delegation) with Marshal Akhromeyev to demonstrate that the prominent Soviet military officer "had an abject fear of SDI."31 Schweizer also asserts, rather than proves, that "Gorbachev's willingness to agree to dramatic cuts [in his strategic and intermediate nuclear forces] and link them to strategic defense was further evidence of just how desperate Moscow was for relief from the West."32 Thus, Reagan's refusal to bargain away Star Wars was a crushing blow because "Soviet hopes of eliminating the SDI research program were dashed once and for all."33

As this paper will demonstrate, Schweizer's is an extremely poor, biased and incomplete history of the Cold War's culmination. But it merits the consideration given to it here because Richard Pipes, an extremely erudite and serious student of Russia's history, once wrote that Schweizer's book -- although it "lacks scholarly rigor" and is based upon interviews, "many of which cannot be verified" -- "comes closer to explaining the end of the Cold War" than Raymond Garthoff's extraordinarily researched book, The Great Transition.34

Pipes (a member of the CIA's "Team B," author of the alarmist and now thoroughly discredited article, "Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War" and advisor to President Reagan during the first years of his first term) notes with approval that Schweizer "opens with three quotations from three high Soviet officials ... conceding publicly that Reagan's programs, such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, 'accelerated the decline of the Soviet Union.'"35

Lending further scholarly weight to the Star Wars argument is Martin Malia's book, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991. Malia wrote, "SDI posed a technological and economic challenge the Soviets could neither ignore nor match."36 He adds that "former Soviet military personnel and political analysts generally agree that the Soviet Union's inability to keep up its half of the arms race, in particular regard to SDI, was a principal factor in triggering perestroika."37

According to Malia, "the crucial turning point was the INF Treaty of 1987...Gorbachev bowed out of the Cold War essentially on the West's terms and without obtaining any concession on SDI. No doubt one reason he did so was that by 1987...the internal difficulties of perestroika had become acute."38

There's plenty of evidence, much of it emerging after Schweizer, Pipes and Malia offered their interpretations of events, to refute every claim made for Reagan and the Star Wars interpretation. First is the emerging evidence that in 1985, the Soviets undertook "a separate effort, code-named Protivodeistviye (Counteraction)...as an asymmetric response to SDI, aimed at improving the ability of ICBMs to survive against space-based weapons."39 That effort's greatest contribution was the Topol-M ICBM that was specifically designed to counter Star Wars.40

The Topol-M not only survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also the economic duress that plagued post-Soviet Russia during its first decade of existence. The first ten Topol-Ms were deployed in 1998. Ten more were deployed in 1999. Proponents of the Star Wars interpretation might want to reconsider their operating hypothesis, based upon that fact alone.

According to reports gathered by Nikolai Sokov, "Topol-M's warhead is precision-guided or uses other technology with the same effect ...this single-warhead ICBM carries more decoys and penetration aids than a ten-warhead Peacekeeper (MX). Reportedly, the warhead is hardened, and only a direct hit by an antimissile could stop it on the descending trajectory...Topol-M's booster is intended to reduce the duration and the altitude of the active (boost) phase of the trajectory. This was done specifically to avoid the impact of 'various-types' of antimissile defense systems, such as ultra-high-frequency emissions, lasers and so forth -- a clear reference to the 'exotic' 'Star Wars' space-based systems."41

With this evidence in mind, Mikhail Gorbachev's statement to President Reagan at Geneva, in November 1985, takes on added significance. Referring to Star Wars, Gorbachev said, "I think you should know that we have already developed a response. It will be effective and far less expensive than your project, and be ready for use in less time."42

In this context, Roald Sagdeev's assertion that "Marshal Akhromeyev and his people never attributed much to SDI's technical prospects."43 becomes more plausible than John Poindexter's. Thus, also gaining plausibility are the assertions of M.I. Gerasev (Institute for the USA and Canada), General M. A. Gareev, and V. V. Shlykov that denigrate SDI's significance.44

Finally, Professor Malia's interpretation of the INF Treaty does not withstand compelling evidence to the contrary. First, we now know that Andrei Sakharov -- who called Star Wars "a Maginot line in space" -- persuaded Gorbachev in February 1987 to avoid allowing his concerns about Star Wars to prevent him from negotiating the INF Treaty (if not the START treaty).45 Second, the incursion, not only into Soviet airspace, but into Red Square of Mathias Rust's Cesna airplane in May gave Gorbachev the excuse he needed to purge the military. Gorbachev subsequently remarked, "Let everyone here and in the West know where the power is -- it is in the political leadership, in the Politburo." Gorbachev had overcome a major obstacle to his pursuit of "mutual security."46

Third, and perhaps most significantly, immediately after the signing of the INF Treaty, Gorbachev and his Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze "stood up, beaming, and raised their arms straight up in a victory gesture."47

This from

Walter C. Uhler, the Defense Contract Management Agency's Chief of Operations for Lockheed Martin Delaware Valley, has studied and written about Russian and military history for approximately 30 years. He received a BA in Political Science and another in Russian language from the Pennsylvania State University. He also received a Certificate for completion of Russian Area Studies and a Masters of Public Administration from Penn State. His Master's Essay compared the weapons' acquisition practices of the US and the USSR. Articles, reviews and OP-EDs by Mr. Uhler have been published in The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The Moscow Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Defense News, The Journal of Military History, the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Russian History, the Naval War College Review and Government Executive.
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Footnotes can be found at the link: http://www.armscontrol.ru/start/publications/uhler1.htm
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The role of Western governments in the disintegration of the Soviet Union was complex. The two most important factors that undermined the Soviet state were the deepening economic chaos under Mikhail Gorbachev and the rapid growth of internal political dissent. Western policies tended to magnify both of these factors. This is not to say, however, that Gorbachev's original decision to embark on an economic reform program was simply the result of pressure created by Western defense spending and military deployments. The Soviet economy was plagued by severe weaknesses, of which the misallocation of resources and excessive military expenditures were only a small part. Gorbachev's initial economic reforms were spurred by his awareness of the country's general economic problems. After the first round of reforms failed, he sensed that arms control and reductions in military spending would be helpful for the next stage. Even so, the belated cuts he made in military spending (beginning in 1990) were of relatively little consequence. The West's refusal to pour money into the Soviet system without evidence of structural reform in the last years of the Soviet regime, and Western pressure on Gorbachev not to crack down on political dissent and separatism, did hasten the Soviet collapse. These policies denied the Soviet system resources that might have prolonged its survival, and they helped to deter Gorbachev from using decisive force against elements that were splitting the Soviet Union apart.

Western Policy and the Demise of the Soviet Union

Celeste A. Wallander

Celeste A. Wallander is director of the Russia and Eurasia Program and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/152039703322483774?cookieSet=1&journalCode=jcws
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Here's a guy who loves Reagan...

The Reagan-era defense buildup did contribute to ending the Cold War, but the causal connection is more indirect than described in the conventional wisdom. In other words, the impact of the Reagan buildup was not primarily a function of the strain it placed on the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union never increased its military spending to match the rate of the Reagan buildup and hence avoided exacerbating the defense burden on the Soviet economy.[7] Instead, the buildup and more assertive U.S. stance in general were most significant for how they affected Soviet thinking.

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/aug/knopfAUG04.asp
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To be clear, I'm not arguing either/or, but a realistic examination of the Soviet collapse has to put much more emphasis on the internals than what the West did and the hagiography that has been built around Reagan and his administration about SDI is somewhat silly and goes against the facts.

It's also interesting that we see Poindexter, Perle, Kristol, etc. taking the position that SDI spent the Soviets into the ground. They've been right on so much so far.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

rimrocker said:

To be clear, I'm not arguing either/or, but a realistic examination of the Soviet collapse has to put much more emphasis on the internals than what the West did and the hagiography that has been built around Reagan and his administration about SDI is somewhat silly and goes against the facts.
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Not at all. The facts are read in different ways by different people. I can put up those who say one thing and you another. Both are just opinions. Neither are facts. It is interesting to note that the major critique of the position is that Soviet spending wasn't affected by the SDI/military buildup when that's already accounted for on the 'for' side when they argue that it was a recognition by the Soviets that they couldn't match the spending, not that they did match the spending.

"Here was Gorbachev speaking at a session of the Politburo in October 1986, days before he traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland to offer Reagan a groundbreaking disarmament plan, including a 50 percent reduction in nuclear arsenals. If he didn't propose these cuts, Gorbachev told his colleagues:

[W]e will be pulled into an arms race that is beyond our capabilities, and we will lose it because we are at the limit of our capabilities. … If the new round [of an arms race] begins, the pressures on our economy will be unbelievable."

http://www.slate.com/id/2102081/

rimrocker said:

It's also interesting that we see Poindexter, Perle, Kristol, etc. taking the position that SDI spent the Soviets into the ground. They've been right on so much so far.
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Hmmmm, so being wrong on one thing means being wrong on everything? Don't think so, especially when one is an examination of past incidents and one a projection of future incidents. For example, the piece that you originally quoted projected that ASAT spending would cause a new arms race in space, lol. Oops.

canoner2002 · Oct 18, 2006

Bush's thinking is very simple: Bully rules!

We are all back to animal kindom. No wonder so many countries are trying to get their hands on WMD. Look at what a good example Bush is setting.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

canoner2002 said:

Bush's thinking is very simple: Bully rules!

We are all back to animal kindom. No wonder so many countries are trying to get their hands on WMD. Look at what a good example Bush is setting.
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Yeah, no countries were trying to get nukes before Bush.

canoner2002 · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

Yeah, no countries were trying to get nukes before Bush.
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Did I say that? You don't have to be the first ever to set a great example.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

canoner2002 said:

Did I say that? You don't have to be the first ever to set a great example.
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You said "no wonder so many countries are trying to get WMDs." That implies a causal relationship between Bush and the drive to get WMDs. Since every country that is currently trying or has recently acquired WMDs was in the process before Bush came to power, I don't think that is a valid critique.

FranchiseBlade · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

You said "no wonder so many countries are trying to get WMDs." That implies a causal relationship between Bush and the drive to get WMDs. Since every country that is currently trying or has recently acquired WMDs was in the process before Bush came to power, I don't think that is a valid critique.
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I believe that after the axis of evil speech both N. Korea, and Iran have increased efforts. It isn't that they weren't trying before, it is that they are trying with renewed vigor.

HayesStreet · Oct 18, 2006

FranchiseBlade said:

I believe that after the axis of evil speech both N. Korea, and Iran have increased efforts. It isn't that they weren't trying before, it is that they are trying with renewed vigor.
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That's just speculation. Others speculate that Iran and N Korea have had continuous nuclear programs.

Deckard · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

That's just speculation. Others speculate that Iran and N Korea have had continuous nuclear programs.
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I think it is speculation grounded in reality. Have you noticed what North Korea has been doing since that speech? Iran? You're parsing, Hayes... I know that you believe the "Axis of Evil" speech was an idiotic foriegn policy blunder by Bush. Tell me if I'm wrong.

You just want to argue!

Keep D&D Civil.

geeimsobored · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

You said "no wonder so many countries are trying to get WMDs." That implies a causal relationship between Bush and the drive to get WMDs. Since every country that is currently trying or has recently acquired WMDs was in the process before Bush came to power, I don't think that is a valid critique.
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I don't think the speech itself somehow drove North Korea to speed up its nuclear developments. However, it certainly didn't help. Nothing good came out of that speech other than larger resentment from the three countries listed as well as anger from several allies.

lpbman · Oct 18, 2006

HayesStreet said:

That's just speculation. Others speculate that Iran and N Korea have had continuous nuclear programs.
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Well, you'd hope that after labeling Iran and North Korea as parts of an axis of evil during the State of the Union, we'd do something about them instead of watching North Korea test nukes and Iran pump weapons into Iraq while openly processing nuclear materials.

If those countries aren't screaming "IN YOUR FACE" and "I'M DANGEROUS" then I don't know what that sounds like I guess.

A list of demands is not diplomacy. There are no guarantees diplomacy will work but I guarantee whining to the U.N. isn't going to solve our problems. Not with China, Russia, and France with fingers in all the pies. Maybe it's a start to real progress, but that would be the first REAL foreign policy success (maybe Libya?) 6 years into an administration so forgive me for not holding my breath.

tinman · Oct 18, 2006

geeimsobored said:

All your space are belong to us.

Someone needs to make a good photoshop with something like that.
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<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qItugh-fFgg"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qItugh-fFgg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

StupidMoniker · Oct 19, 2006

Incom cheers.

Yaozer · Oct 19, 2006

Sharing is Caring

FranchiseBlade · Oct 19, 2006

HayesStreet said:

That's just speculation. Others speculate that Iran and N Korea have had continuous nuclear programs.
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I believe both to be the case. I believe they have had continuos ones that have idlling along slowly, but have recently stepped it into high gear. It wasn't until 2003 that N. Korea withdrew from the Non-proliferation treaty. And it was 2002 when they were first discovered to have been taking in nuclear materials from our good friends in Pakistan.

Zboy · Oct 19, 2006

LOL!!

Cmon George!! First finish the ask at hand in Iraq, then you can go after Milky Way.

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