The collapse of communism and the role of the U.S.
Michael Persons
>In <1992Nov10....@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM (It's not what you got, it's what you give) writes:
>
>>>The interesting question is this: will Ronald Reagan get the credit for the
>>>collapse of communism in America or with the credit go to whomever is on
>
>>why not give the credit to Gorbechev (spelling?)?
>
>Because without Reagan's Defense policies there would have been no
>'crisis' for the Soviet Union, insofar as spending a huge amount of
>wealth and still being faced by the United States, which looked like
>it was able and willing to outrun them indefinitely? Bush tried to
>claim credit for this one, but he just happened to be the one in
>office when things came to fruition. The credit belongs (on this side
>of the Big Water) to President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
>
>--
>"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
> in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fred....@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire. The problem is, I haven't heard any
proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
In fact, what we have heard, in the Robert Gates CIA hearings, is that CIA
analysts were encouraged to overinflate the threat of the Soviet empire, and
to ignore the obvious signs of it crumbling under its own corrupt, inefficient
weight.
Perhaps right-wingers cling to this belief with such tenacity because, if they
let go of it, they would have to admit that Reagan's multi-billion (trillion?)
dollar military buildup was in fact, billion (trillions?) of dollars wasted.
Mike Persons
m...@sdf.lonestar.org
Peter //odin
To me, the obvious reason is that the Soviet Union was totally corrupt, non-
productive, and with a non-enthusiastic population. Sure, Ronnie's Arms Race
probably contributed to the collapse, but did he also create the corruption?
--
=================================================================
| Peter Modin - Responses to: e91p...@und.ida.liu.se |
| Dept. of of Computer Science, Linkoping University, Sweden |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Q: How many Macintosh users does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. You have to replace the whole motherboard.
/// /\ ___
/// / \ |\ /| | / \ /\
fred j mccall 575-3539
>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
Gee, Jim Pritchett things I'm a Liberal and you seem to want to claim
I'm 'right-wing'. Does that make me a 'right-wing liberal' and is
that another term for 'raging moderate'?
>The problem is, I haven't heard any
>proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
>position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
>Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
>drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
No, and you're not going to. What the arms buildup did was
demonstrate to the Soviets that military expansion would not be
feasible without increasingly large military expenditures. Military
expenditures that their system could no longer support. So when
someone came in pushing for change, change was then possible. What do
you think would have happened to a Soviet leader who tried what
Gorbachev did, if he'd done it 20 years ago?
>In fact, what we have heard, in the Robert Gates CIA hearings, is that CIA
>analysts were encouraged to overinflate the threat of the Soviet empire, and
>to ignore the obvious signs of it crumbling under its own corrupt, inefficient
>weight.
Of course they were. When you do a threat analysis, you analyze for
worst possibilities. You see, if you have to go to war, they don't
give any second place awards for underestimating your opponent. And
you often don't get a second chance to correct that kind of mistake.
>Perhaps right-wingers cling to this belief with such tenacity because, if they
>let go of it, they would have to admit that Reagan's multi-billion (trillion?)
>dollar military buildup was in fact, billion (trillions?) of dollars wasted.
And perhaps some of them simply have a clearer idea than you do about
how things work?
Michael Persons
writes:
>
>>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
>
>Gee, Jim Pritchett things I'm a Liberal and you seem to want to claim
>I'm 'right-wing'. Does that make me a 'right-wing liberal' and is
>that another term for 'raging moderate'?
>
Perhaps that makes you one of those types that is socially moderate but
"hawkish" on foreign policy issues.
>>The problem is, I haven't heard any
>>proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
>>position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
>>Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
>>drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
>
>No, and you're not going to. What the arms buildup did was
>demonstrate to the Soviets that military expansion would not be
>feasible without increasingly large military expenditures. Military
>expenditures that their system could no longer support. So when
>someone came in pushing for change, change was then possible. What do
>you think would have happened to a Soviet leader who tried what
>Gorbachev did, if he'd done it 20 years ago?
It seems to me that you are assuming as fact one of the "hawkish" beliefs
about the Soviet union:
- The Soviets had an insatiable drive to conquer the world.
- Alternative view: As one wag put it, the Soviet Union was the only
country in the world surrounded by hostile Communist countries, i.e.
it had enough trouble holding on to all of its satellite countries
to discourage it from thinking about invading far-away countries.
As I said before, many believe the country was falling apart on its own.
And even if your scenario was true, why, exactly, are we not going to hear
about it from any former Soviet officials? You are saying "This is what
happened, but no one will admit that it is the truth." Sounds kinda
suspicious to me, what with all the political points that could be racked
up by right-wingers if some Soviet admitted this. I remain unconvinced by
your statements.
>
>>In fact, what we have heard, in the Robert Gates CIA hearings, is that CIA
>>analysts were encouraged to overinflate the threat of the Soviet empire, and
>>to ignore the obvious signs of it crumbling under its own corrupt,
>>inefficient weight.
>
>Of course they were. When you do a threat analysis, you analyze for
>worst possibilities. You see, if you have to go to war, they don't
>give any second place awards for underestimating your opponent. And
>you often don't get a second chance to correct that kind of mistake.
Possible. However, if the threat is small enough, which many believe it was
(from what I've read), other reasons for inflating the threat become plausible,
the largest, of course, being the megabucks that the defense contractors could
rake in.
>>Perhaps rightwingers cling to this belief with such tenacity because, if they
>>let go of it, they would have to admit that Reagan's multi-billion (trillion?)
>>dollar military buildup was in fact, billion (trillions?) of dollars wasted.
>
>And perhaps some of them simply have a clearer idea than you do about
>how things work?
>
Perhaps. But based on what I have learned, I think not.
>--
>"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
> in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fred....@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Mike Persons
m...@sdf.lonestar.org
Rocky J Giovinazzo
>In article <1992Nov26....@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com
> (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <By2uD...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons)
> writes:
>>
>>>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>>>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>>>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
>>
I don't agree with a statement that says Reagan's build-up is
the ONLY reason why, but it certainly was a significant and direct contribution.
SDI was getting tons of attention 1 - 1 1/2 years before Gorbachev's
"concession" speech. The USSR didn't just turn around for no reason.
If you can't accept this, then you at least have to accept that the
Soviets were forced to spend (militarily) themselves to death.
If we had gone another course (i.e. see Al Gore), we would have
military "build-down" and very possibly a strong Soviet Union still
in existence today.
>>>The problem is, I haven't heard any
>>>proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
>>>position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
>>>Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
>>>drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
>>
How about this? Try thinking about it for a while. Maybe read
something and you'll get it. It is ludicrous to suppose that
ex-Soviet officials would make a statement like this... and even if they
did, how does that make it accurate? It's still just someone's
evaluation based on the past 50 years of history.
>It seems to me that you are assuming as fact one of the "hawkish" beliefs
>about the Soviet union:
>
> - The Soviets had an insatiable drive to conquer the world.
> - Alternative view: As one wag put it, the Soviet Union was the only
> country in the world surrounded by hostile Communist countries, i.e.
> it had enough trouble holding on to all of its satellite countries
> to discourage it from thinking about invading far-away countries.
And why do you think they had trouble holding onto these satellites?
Is it because the US has been sitting around for the past 50 years shaking
hands with the Soviets and sleeping as the USSR did whatever it wanted
to? Or is it because the US tried to be tough against the Soviets
when it could. Carter recognized the threat of the USSR. It's not
some Republican myth.
SR was the US's political enemy
>As I said before, many believe the country was falling apart on its own.
>And even if your scenario was true, why, exactly, are we not going to hear
>about it from any former Soviet officials? You are saying "This is what
>happened, but no one will admit that it is the truth." Sounds kinda
>suspicious to me, what with all the political points that could be racked
>up by right-wingers if some Soviet admitted this. I remain unconvinced by
>your statements.
I really see no reason why you can't understand this. Your
arguement is basically, "I want it spelled out for me. It's not
spelled out. I'm not going to think about it objectively.
It must not be true." However, since you apparently didn't get it
the first time, I feel a little bad and thought I might try to explain.
First, this statement WAS made to some effect by Gorbachev
in 1988. Check your library. Second, there is no real reason to make
such a statment as blatant as the one you call for. It would only
>
>>>Perhaps rightwingers cling to this belief with such tenacity because, if they
>>>let go of it, they would have to admit that Reagan's multi-billion (trillion?)
>>dollar military buildup was in fact, billion (trillions?) of dollars wasted.
The money was not wasted if it ensured the our existence. This hasn't
been a poker bet you know. We could have tried the nuclear freeze
that Al Gore proposed and we could have been militarily weak. It might
have worked, maybe something else would have happened to make the
USSR come apart. ... BUT it would have been extremely risky. I'd
much rather over do-it to be sure it was done right.
Rocky Giovinazzo
giov...@hks.hks.com
fred j mccall 575-3539
>In article <1992Nov26....@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com
> (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <By2uD...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons)
> writes:
>>
>>>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>>>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>>>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
>>
>>Gee, Jim Pritchett things I'm a Liberal and you seem to want to claim
>>I'm 'right-wing'. Does that make me a 'right-wing liberal' and is
>>that another term for 'raging moderate'?
>>
>Perhaps that makes you one of those types that is socially moderate but
>"hawkish" on foreign policy issues.
Ah, I see. Everyone must have a label and fit neatly into a box.
>>>The problem is, I haven't heard any
>>>proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
>>>position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
>>>Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
>>>drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
>>
>>No, and you're not going to. What the arms buildup did was
>>demonstrate to the Soviets that military expansion would not be
>>feasible without increasingly large military expenditures. Military
>>expenditures that their system could no longer support. So when
>>someone came in pushing for change, change was then possible. What do
>>you think would have happened to a Soviet leader who tried what
>>Gorbachev did, if he'd done it 20 years ago?
>It seems to me that you are assuming as fact one of the "hawkish" beliefs
>about the Soviet union:
> - The Soviets had an insatiable drive to conquer the world.
> - Alternative view: As one wag put it, the Soviet Union was the only
> country in the world surrounded by hostile Communist countries, i.e.
> it had enough trouble holding on to all of its satellite countries
> to discourage it from thinking about invading far-away countries.
Oh, horse manure! One need make no 'assumptions' about the Soviet
Union. One need merely look at recent history. One need merely read
their military doctrine. One need merely watch their actions on the
world stage. Phrasing things ridiculously doesn't prove your
position; it merely disproves the strawman that you insist must be the
only alternative position.
>As I said before, many believe the country was falling apart on its own.
>And even if your scenario was true, why, exactly, are we not going to hear
>about it from any former Soviet officials? You are saying "This is what
>happened, but no one will admit that it is the truth." Sounds kinda
>suspicious to me, what with all the political points that could be racked
>up by right-wingers if some Soviet admitted this. I remain unconvinced by
>your statements.
Well, then you can just remain unconvinced. What 'many believe'
doesn't cut a whole lot of ice. Why are you unsurprised that you
don't hear anything about "it" from former Soviet officials? Oh, and
thank you for telling me what I'm saying -- and here all this time I
thought *I* was the one who would know that. Without your kind
assistance, I might never have realized that I was saying something
totally different from what I was saying.
>>
>>>In fact, what we have heard, in the Robert Gates CIA hearings, is that CIA
>>>analysts were encouraged to overinflate the threat of the Soviet empire, and
>>>to ignore the obvious signs of it crumbling under its own corrupt,
>>>inefficient weight.
>>
>>Of course they were. When you do a threat analysis, you analyze for
>>worst possibilities. You see, if you have to go to war, they don't
>>give any second place awards for underestimating your opponent. And
>>you often don't get a second chance to correct that kind of mistake.
>Possible. However, if the threat is small enough, which many believe it was
>(from what I've read), other reasons for inflating the threat become plausible,
>the largest, of course, being the megabucks that the defense contractors could
>rake in.
Gee, and I never realized that Defense contractors could control and
pressure the CIA, either. Only a matter of time until we hear about
the old shibboleth of the 'Military-Industrial Complex' as a massive
plot, I guess. Hey, if Defense contractors had that much control, do
you think you'd ever see Bill Clinton in the White House?
>>>Perhaps rightwingers cling to this belief with such tenacity because, if they
>>>let go of it, they would have to admit that Reagan's multi-billion (trillion?)
>>>dollar military buildup was in fact, billion (trillions?) of dollars wasted.
>>
>>And perhaps some of them simply have a clearer idea than you do about
>>how things work?
>>
>Perhaps. But based on what I have learned, I think not.
Learn more.
Rocky J Giovinazzo
>In <ByG3q...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Nov26....@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com
>> (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>>In <By2uD...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons)
>> writes:
>>>>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>>>>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>>>>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
>>>>The problem is, I haven't heard any
>>>>proof, period. I haven't heard a single Republican official who is in a
>>>>position to know state this. You'd think that we would hear from at least one
>>>>Soviet official: "Yup, we tried to spend as much as you did on weapons and it
>>>>drove our empire into the ground." But we hear nothing of the sort.
>>>No, and you're not going to.
[lucid argument against the above deleted]
>>As I said before, many believe the country was falling apart on its own.
>>And even if your scenario was true, why, exactly, are we not going to hear
>>about it from any former Soviet officials? You are saying "This is what
>>happened, but no one will admit that it is the truth." Sounds kinda
>>suspicious to me, what with all the political points that could be racked
>>up by right-wingers if some Soviet admitted this. I remain unconvinced by
>>your statements.
>Well, then you can just remain unconvinced. What 'many believe'
>doesn't cut a whole lot of ice.
...and "what many believe" is a logic fallacy in the argument.
>Why are you unsurprised that you
>don't hear anything about "it" from former Soviet officials? Oh, and
>thank you for telling me what I'm saying -- and here all this time I
>thought *I* was the one who would know that. Without your kind
>assistance, I might never have realized that I was saying something
>totally different from what I was saying.
I agree. Since you won't listen to logical arguments, how about if
we put it to you on your own confused terms. All these people are
walking around saying that the military build-up of the US significantly
contributed to the downfall of the USSR, and yet (surprise surprise)
the ex-Soviet officials you talk about so much are making statements
like, "Nooo Nooo Nooo! The Soviet Union collapsed for completely
different reasons. It had nothing to do with the US standing
up against the USSR whenever it could. It was completely a
coincidence that the last 50 years of opposition have paid off."
Rocky Giovinazzo
Lotus
beliee I am being very rational and objective about it. Pardon some of us for
looking for evidence of a claim that seems all-too-easy to make without any
substantiation beyond "Well, we just had to....you know...that's what the point
of the whole thing was.."
Matt
Julie Kangas
<....>
>
>I agree. Since you won't listen to logical arguments, how about if
>we put it to you on your own confused terms. All these people are
>walking around saying that the military build-up of the US significantly
>contributed to the downfall of the USSR, and yet (surprise surprise)
>the ex-Soviet officials you talk about so much are making statements
>like, "Nooo Nooo Nooo! The Soviet Union collapsed for completely
>different reasons. It had nothing to do with the US standing
>up against the USSR whenever it could. It was completely a
>coincidence that the last 50 years of opposition have paid off."
The collapse was due to a number of different things. But who
won the Cold War? I like the way Boris Yeltsin said it when
responding to comments that the West won the Cold War. He
said "We all won the Cold War."
Julie
DISCLAIMER: All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else
Aleksey Y. Romanov
>In article <ByG3q...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov26....@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com
>> (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>>In <By2uD...@sdf.lonestar.org> m...@sdf.lonestar.org (Michael Persons)
>> writes:
>>>
>>>>This has always bugged the shit out of me. I hear right-wing commentators of
>>>>all stripes stating that OF COURSE, Reagan's massive military buildup DIRECTLY
>>>>caused the downfall of the Soviet Empire.
>>>
>
>I don't agree with a statement that says Reagan's build-up is
>the ONLY reason why, but it certainly was a significant and direct contribution.
>SDI was getting tons of attention 1 - 1 1/2 years before Gorbachev's
>"concession" speech. The USSR didn't just turn around for no reason.
>If you can't accept this, then you at least have to accept that the
>Soviets were forced to spend (militarily) themselves to death.
This was evident to everybody who was in xUSSR at this time. It was recognized
in xSoviet press ever before fall of xUSSR.
>
>If we had gone another course (i.e. see Al Gore), we would have
>military "build-down" and very possibly a strong Soviet Union still
>in existence today.
>
A. Gore and R.Gephard as possible candidates had a best reviews in Pravda
I ever saw.
--
Aleksey Y. Romanov
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are entirely my own and do not
necessary reflect those of my employer or anyone else
John F. Haugh II
>The collapse was due to a number of different things. But who
>won the Cold War? I like the way Boris Yeltsin said it when
>responding to comments that the West won the Cold War. He
>said "We all won the Cold War."
Since Russia is aligning itself with the "West" (as opposed to
the entrenched "Communist" half of the world), it is still safe
to say that the "West" won the Cold War. That Russia is
benefitting is not inconsistent. After all, Britian has
benefitted from our winning the Revolutionary War, and I dare
say that Britain LOST that war ...
--
John F. Haugh II [ TSAKC ] !'s: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151 [ DoF #17 ] @'s: j...@rpp386.cactus.org
fred j mccall 575-3539
>I don't believe that the U.S. had that much to do with the Soviet
>fall.
Your prerogative. Everyone is entitled to believe wrong things. Of
course, your 'belief' isn't going to convince realities to change,
either.
>I also
>beliee I am being very rational and objective about it.
Gee, don't we all? Are there really people out there who arrive at
conclusions and honestly believe they are being IRrational? I don't
think so.
>Pardon some of us for
>looking for evidence of a claim that seems all-too-easy to make without any
>substantiation beyond "Well, we just had to....you know...that's what the point
>of the whole thing was.."
Fine. Start with an examination of Soviet foreign policy since the
Tsar. From there, examine Soviet military doctrine, who they
supported doing what, the record of their Intelligence operations and
those of the 'Cousins', then get back to me about how they weren't
expending resources trying to further spread Soviet influence so they
could continue to operate their system. With no competition and no
opposition, things would work very well for them.
You might also like to examine Soviet spending on 'defense' over the
past 10 years (to see just how much and which resources they were
putting into that instead of into their domestic economy) and then do
a little economic exercise with regard to what shape their economy
would have been in if they'd put those resources elsewhere than into
military spending.
If you don't get it by then, give up. You'll never figure it out.
Julie Kangas
>In article <1992Dec2.1...@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> ju...@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
>>The collapse was due to a number of different things. But who
>>won the Cold War? I like the way Boris Yeltsin said it when
>>responding to comments that the West won the Cold War. He
>>said "We all won the Cold War."
>
>Since Russia is aligning itself with the "West" (as opposed to
>the entrenched "Communist" half of the world), it is still safe
>to say that the "West" won the Cold War. That Russia is
>benefitting is not inconsistent. After all, Britian has
>benefitted from our winning the Revolutionary War, and I dare
>say that Britain LOST that war ...
I think it might be better to say the western ideology won the
Cold War. The West was not the only one fighting against Communism.
Yeltsin and his people were working from the inside to try to destroy
it for quite some time. Without them, even with all the pressures
the West put on the Soviet Union, it is quite likely that things would
have muddled along in the Gorby fashion or a strong Stalin-like leader
would have emerged.
fred j mccall 575-3539
>In article <1992Dec2.1...@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> ju...@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
>>The collapse was due to a number of different things. But who
>>won the Cold War? I like the way Boris Yeltsin said it when
>>responding to comments that the West won the Cold War. He
>>said "We all won the Cold War."
>Since Russia is aligning itself with the "West" (as opposed to
>the entrenched "Communist" half of the world), it is still safe
>to say that the "West" won the Cold War. That Russia is
>benefitting is not inconsistent. After all, Britian has
>benefitted from our winning the Revolutionary War, and I dare
>say that Britain LOST that war ...
Not only that, but in modern history we routinely rebuild the
economies of nations we defeat in war. See Germany and Japan for two
examples.
Lotus
dried in the net of things. Please give me a little credit. And you'd be
much more convincing (as would all Usenet posters) if you didn't debate with
such bile. I have been guilty of it in the past, but I'm working on it.
Oh well.
Matt
fred j mccall 575-3539
>I did all of what you prescribed. I still don't think it was that cut and
>dried in the net of things. Please give me a little credit. And you'd be
Then all I can say is that you need to do it some more, because you
must have missed something.
>much more convincing (as would all Usenet posters) if you didn't debate with
>such bile. I have been guilty of it in the past, but I'm working on it.
Well, don't complain if you get what you give.
Paul Swanson
>In <ByvA4...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ival...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus ) writes:
>
>>I did all of what you prescribed. I still don't think it was that cut and
>>dried in the net of things. Please give me a little credit. And you'd be
>
>Then all I can say is that you need to do it some more, because you
>must have missed something.
>
opinion piece by George F. Kennan which appeared in the New York Times a
couple of months ago. Its kind of long (for the net) but well worth reading.
----------
The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under
Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically silly.
The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence
decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in
another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish.
No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments
of any other one.
As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the
regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of
the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation
of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the
exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing
generational gap in the regime.
These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign
Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is widely seen to
have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a
letter from Moscow written in 1952, when I was Ambassador there, to H.
Freeman Mathews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which
also have been widely published. There were some of us to whom it was
clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would
not last for all time. We could not know when or how it would be
changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.
By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had
come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary,
and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in
order.
Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing
tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not
wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the
greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of
international tensions.
The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put
an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev and discredited
his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the
defense of his own political position, on a more strongly belligerent
anti-American tome of public utterance.
The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military
over political policy that soon was to become the outstanding feature of
American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American
discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles over the ensuing
25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet
Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to
an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American
tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls
by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all
liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold
war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that
overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.
What did the greatest damage was not our military preparations
themselves, some of which (not all) were prudent and justifiable. It
was rather the unnecessarily belligerent and threatening tone in which
many of them were publicly carried forward. For this, both Democrats
and Republicans have a share of the blame.
Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was
a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and
exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party.
It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries,
leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial,
social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither
had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
The fact that in Russia's case these changes were long desired on
principle by most of us does not alter the fact that they came -- far
too precipitately -- on a population little prepared for them, thus
creating new problems of the greatest seriousness for Russia, its
neighbors and the rest of us, problems to which, as yet, none of us have
found effective answers.
All these developments should be seen as part of the price we are paying
for the cold war. As in most great international conflicts, it is a
price to be paid by both sides. That the conflict should now be
formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also for sober
re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation.
It is not a fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great
triumph for anyone, and particularly not one for which any American
party could properly claim principal credit.
---------
Paul.
fred j mccall 575-3539
>In article <1992Dec7.1...@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>In <ByvA4...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ival...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus ) writes:
>>
>>>I did all of what you prescribed. I still don't think it was that cut and
>>>dried in the net of things. Please give me a little credit. And you'd be
>>
>>Then all I can say is that you need to do it some more, because you
>>must have missed something.
>>
>On the other hand, perhaps you also have missed something. Here is an
>opinion piece by George F. Kennan which appeared in the New York Times a
>couple of months ago. Its kind of long (for the net) but well worth reading.
I hadn't read the piece, but I don't find it particularly convincing.
In fact, there are several places where there seem to be serious
logical flaws when we compare what is stated to reality. Of course,
it's only an opinion piece, so I guess that's only to be expected, but
I sure wouldn't want to be in the position of basing my opinion on it.
>----------
>The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under
>Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically silly.
>The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence
>decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in
>another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish.
>No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments
>of any other one.
Proof by assertion? He's wrong, by the way. Hell, just look at the
facts. Nations affect and influence other nations every day. For
what he says here to be literally true, every nation on earth would
have to exist in a bubble, with no impacts on any policies caused by
actions or reactions of other nations. Now THAT is a position that is
silly on its face.
In point of fact, the Germans were rather instrumental in the whole
Bolshevik Revolution -- read up on the history of German attempts to
destabilize the Tsarist government during WWI. Of course, they
weren't SOLELY responsible, since there have to be problems with the
internal government in the first place, but it's rather analogous to
throwing bottles at a tightrope walker. It makes it a lot harder for
him to not fall off the wire.
>As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the
>regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns and hopes of
>the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation
>of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become lost in the
>exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing
>generational gap in the regime.
Big surprise. So there are problems. I don't think anyone is saying
that our policy toward the Soviets was the single sole reason for
change there. As I said, there have to be weaknesses in the system in
the first place for outside influences to work. But then, all systems
have SOME weaknesses, and it's one of the basic assumptions that
communism as practiced by the Soviets was a stupid and inefficient
system; otherwise, why would we have opposed it?
>These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign
>Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is widely seen to
>have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a
>letter from Moscow written in 1952, when I was Ambassador there, to H.
>Freeman Mathews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which
>also have been widely published. There were some of us to whom it was
>clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would
>not last for all time. We could not know when or how it would be
>changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.
Yes, and how much longer could they have gone on if we hadn't been out
there throwing bottles at them? How much longer could they have gone
on if we had been more accomodating? The answers there seem to me to
be "a long time" and "even longer".
>By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had
>come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous and unnecessary,
>and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in
>order.
Of course they did. Stalin was a quite different man than Lenin;
however, Lenin and his ideas were still highly revered.
>Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing
>tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but he was not
>wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the
>greatest hope for internal political liberalization and relaxation of
>international tensions.
In other words, we could have reached a nice rapprochement that would
have let the Soviet system go on indefinitely. Sure sounds like MY
idea of a good policy.
>The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put
>an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev and discredited
>his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the
>defense of his own political position, on a more strongly belligerent
>anti-American tome of public utterance.
Gee, that sure seems somewhat at odds with history as I find it: the
cutting off of Berlin (by Krushchev) in 1958, for example. This
sounds like the same sort of wishful thinking that ALWAYS goes on.
>The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military
>over political policy that soon was to become the outstanding feature of
>American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American
>discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles over the ensuing
>25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet
>Union.
No doubt true, but it also kept them from making the adjustments to
stay on that tightrope. That's the whole IDEA. Oh, sure, we could
have 'made nice' with the Soviets, in which case we would now be
seeing: three separate German nations, with an independent city of
Berlin; Soviet missiles in Cuba; various Soviet puppet states in
Africa and South America; a revised U.N., with the 'Troika' system in
place; and a lot of other things that we would consider relatively
bad. And not to mention that we would still be faced with a
monolithic Soviet Union exercising virtual sovreignity over Eastern
Europe (as witnessed by various military actions against attempts by
them to be their own masters, from 1953 to 1968).
>The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to
>an ultimate military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American
>tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls
>by both party and police, and the greater the braking effect on all
>liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold
>war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that
>overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.
Have you ever studied the theory of why guerilla warfare works? This
thesis is simply silly. The forcing of the tightening of controls and
greater expenditures of wealth and resources for 'non-productive'
purposes (like building up their military) which were then shown to
not be good enough are what forced the break this early. If we had
been accomodating since the 1960's, we would be looking at a Soviet
Union that would have been slightly more liberal than the one that we
saw for the past 30 years, but one which would be perfectly capable of
continuing on for another 30 years.
>What did the greatest damage was not our military preparations
>themselves, some of which (not all) were prudent and justifiable. It
>was rather the unnecessarily belligerent and threatening tone in which
>many of them were publicly carried forward. For this, both Democrats
>and Republicans have a share of the blame.
>Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was
>a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and
>exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party.
>It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries,
>leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial,
>social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither
>had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
Another misstatement. Just what is the 'cost' supposed to have been
to us that was so disastrous? It is those "heavy financial, social,
and political problems" that pushed the Soviet tightrope walker off
the wire.
>The fact that in Russia's case these changes were long desired on
>principle by most of us does not alter the fact that they came -- far
>too precipitately -- on a population little prepared for them, thus
>creating new problems of the greatest seriousness for Russia, its
>neighbors and the rest of us, problems to which, as yet, none of us have
>found effective answers.
We would all be better off if the change had been more gradual and the
Soviet Union still held sway over Eastern Europe? I suspect a lot of
Eastern Europeans would disagree with you on that one.
>All these developments should be seen as part of the price we are paying
>for the cold war. As in most great international conflicts, it is a
>price to be paid by both sides. That the conflict should now be
>formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also for sober
>re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation.
>It is not a fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great
>triumph for anyone, and particularly not one for which any American
>party could properly claim principal credit.
Examining the policies of the national leadership of the two parties,
I think he is wrong. One thing of interest; which political party is
this man affiliated with? Just whose administrations did he serve
under?
David L. Cathey
> In <1992Dec7.2...@Princeton.EDU> pswa...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson) writes:
>>It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries,
>>leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial,
>>social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither
>>had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
>
> Another misstatement. Just what is the 'cost' supposed to have been
> to us that was so disastrous? It is those "heavy financial, social,
> and political problems" that pushed the Soviet tightrope walker off
> the wire.
Well, looking at a $4T debt could be disastrous. You analogy of the
tight-rope walker in incomplete. We also are on a tight-rope, since we do
not live in a bubble unaffected by the (un)USSR. We just did a better job
of balancing, but are not means off the wire, yet.
That's not to say it was not required, since the USSR did believe
that it could take over the world (presumably without firing a shot?) However,
it would have been nicer to feed a few people instead...
> We would all be better off if the change had been more gradual and the
> Soviet Union still held sway over Eastern Europe? I suspect a lot of
> Eastern Europeans would disagree with you on that one.
Actually, we should have probably turned Patton loose, and avoided the
whole mess... It would have cost much less in the long run. But that's
hindsight.
> Fred....@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
David L. Cathey |INET: dav...@montagar.com
Montagar Software Concepts |UUCP: ...!montagar!davidc
P. O. Box 260772, Plano TX 75026-0772 |Fone: (214)-618-2117
fred j mccall 575-3539
>In article <1992Dec10.1...@mksol.dseg.ti.com>, mcc...@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>> In <1992Dec7.2...@Princeton.EDU> pswa...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson) writes:
>>>It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries,
>>>leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial,
>>>social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither
>>>had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
>>
>> Another misstatement. Just what is the 'cost' supposed to have been
>> to us that was so disastrous? It is those "heavy financial, social,
>> and political problems" that pushed the Soviet tightrope walker off
>> the wire.
> Well, looking at a $4T debt could be disastrous. You analogy of the
>tight-rope walker in incomplete. We also are on a tight-rope, since we do
>not live in a bubble unaffected by the (un)USSR. We just did a better job
>of balancing, but are not means off the wire, yet.
And why do you want to attribute that debt to only one component of
spending? If you add up spending, I think you'll find that
entitlements are bigger than Defense, both in the short and long term.
So why not blame the debt on entitlements?
> That's not to say it was not required, since the USSR did believe
>that it could take over the world (presumably without firing a shot?) However,
>it would have been nicer to feed a few people instead...
Well, I think it's pretty nice that we're all here and can disagree
with each other without having the KGB show up at the door. I'd
rather have that than feed a few people who I don't even know. Of
course, doing both would be 'nice', too.
>> We would all be better off if the change had been more gradual and the
>> Soviet Union still held sway over Eastern Europe? I suspect a lot of
>> Eastern Europeans would disagree with you on that one.
> Actually, we should have probably turned Patton loose, and avoided the
>whole mess... It would have cost much less in the long run. But that's
>hindsight.
We wouldn't have even had to turn Patton loose. The Germans offered
to surrender to us if we would arm them and let them fight the
Russians. Their reasoning was, "You're going to have to do it sooner
or later, anyway, so why not let us do it for you?"
--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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