Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Reagan's influence on American policy certain helped.
However, the inevitability of the collapse of the Soviet union was never in doubt. Their commitment to "communism" which looked like totalitarian socialism, was the guarantee it would happen. Reagan's influence may have altered the timing, but the eventual collapse wasn't ever in doubt.
Sure it was. Their economy at the time of the collapse was essentially the same as ours now and no one is claiming our economy is going to collapse. They had GDP growth that ranged from 1 - 3%. The SU made the choice to elect Gorbachev and the reforms he put in place spiraled out of control. Don't think for a second there wasn't talk about sending in the military to curb the "revolution" but ultimately it continued on.
Sure it was. Their economy at the time of the collapse was essentially the same as ours now and no one is claiming our economy is going to collapse. They had GDP growth that ranged from 1 - 3%. The SU made the choice to elect Gorbachev and the reforms he put in place spiraled out of control. Don't think for a second there wasn't talk about sending in the military to curb the "revolution" but ultimately it continued on.
I am surprised that no one is mentioning the oil price collapse that really hurt the Soviet Union in the 80s.
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, King Fahd joined with the United States to aid Afghans fighting the Russians. Hume Horan, a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, wrote in a 2004 article for the American Enterprise Institute that William J. Casey, then director of central intelligence, visited the king in 1987.
The American brought a shiny, detailed Kalashnikov rifle. Its stock featured a brass plaque saying that the weapon had been taken from the body of a Russian officer.
"Mr. Casey might as well have been giving the keys to the Kingdom of God itself," Mr. Horan wrote. "The king rose, flourished the weapon, and struck a martial pose."
William Casey secretly met with King Fahd an urged him to increase oil production as one part of Reagan's four part war against the SU. It was a huge part of bringing the American economy back to its feet and crippled the Soviet economy as it was ramping up production at the Urengoy Gas Fields.
Although that part isn't mentioned in Reagan's NSDDs.
In my economics textbook, it said that Reagan was able to end the USSR by putting sanctions in place for it to crumble. Is this true?
False. In the late 1968s a Soviet economist named Andrei Amerik got life sentence in the Gulag because he wrote a book (Samidatz) entitled "Will the USSR exist in 1984?' he used Marxist theory to argue that nationalist tensions, increasing alienation, abuse of Vodka, dovoting 40-60% of the Soviet GDP on military programs in a futile attempt to keep up with the United States which only spent 4-6% on similar programs and had vastly more larger economic base to compete wit the USSR if it chose to say double it s military spending. Toss in the fact the Soviet economy actually ceased to grow by the early 1970s and was falling further behind the West each year and it was clear to Andrei the USSR was not long for this World and he said so in 1968 13 years before Ronald Reagan was sworn in as US President in 1981. Andrei was only 7 years off in his pronostication which in the Futurism business is almost the equivalent of shooting an Eagle in Golf.
I am surprised that no one is mentioning the oil price collapse that really hurt the Soviet Union in the 80s.
The USSR was not a major oil exporter to the West before 1992, It was a major gas exporter and by the 1980s the worlds longest gas pipelines stretched from Siberia to the Austrian border where it could be distributed through out Europe. Saudi Arabia was not a major player in the gas market at that time and actually flared it to get rid of it. One of the few lights bright enough to be seen from the Moon by the Apollo astronauts was those Saudi gas flares which were joined by flares in Iraq, the rest of the Per5sian Gulf, Iran, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezeula even the good old USA.
The USSR was not a major oil exporter to the West before 1992, It was a major gas exporter and by the 1980s the worlds longest gas pipelines stretched from Siberia to the Austrian border where it could be distributed through out Europe. Saudi Arabia was not a major player in the gas market at that time and actually flared it to get rid of it. One of the few lights bright enough to be seen from the Moon by the Apollo astronauts was those Saudi gas flares which were joined by flares in Iraq, the rest of the Per5sian Gulf, Iran, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezeula even the good old USA.
In 1980 a third of its oil exports went to developed western countries and half went to Comecon countries.
It was a little more than that I think. I think Reagan outspent the USSR on the millitary which alarmed the USSR, who in turn tried to do the same. Reagan also bluffed using the "star wars" program to alarm the soviets as well. But as we know with socialism, you eventually run out of other peoples money.
The All Union Academy of Sciences of the USSR within a few months of Reagan's SDI speech told the Politiboro that the program was a bluff and couldn't be built with US technology because it violated physics. American Physicists who prepared a report in 1986 for the American Physical Society that came to the same conclusion as well. Now the Soviets being their paranoid selves decided to take what they did have and accelerate Glusko's Energyia Heavy Lift Booster to launch a series or orbital battle stations unmanned or manned if need be. These would be space going equivalent of hunter-killer submarines and since the Soviets found that a simple modification of the gun they used on Mig and Sukhoi jet fighters would make it usable in space. They had in hand a effective weapon to wipe out the US Space Shuttle, all our reconissance satellites and even take out weather satellites. So all that would remain are the comsats to deal with to render US forces blind, mute and deaf as well. The space battlestations had a missle derived from their most advanced SAM system the S-300 to knock out enough of the comsats to break most US comlinks except old 1050s style radio and if avaiable subsea cables. The prototype of this combat spacecraft was test launched on the first launch of the Energyia Booster in 1986. The Energyia worked fine but the Polyus (Which is Russian for Test item) did not because the Russians to fit it on Energyia had to invert it so it was launched backwards. Although it was programed to flip over after being detached from the Energyia it did not and when its rockets fired to finish orbital insertion they slowed the Polyus and sent it on a one way trip into the North Pacific. The new Soviet leader (Gorbachev) was not pleased so he pulled the plug on this Soviet version of Star Wars. Gorby decided it was not a good idea to accelrate the arms race by putting weapons in space which would have provoked an angry reponse from Reagan even if his previous actions were the contributing factor. The APS Report was also put into Gorbachev's hands and bolstered his confidence that SDI would not provide any real advanced over the earlier ABM systems that the US and USSR put on the shelves in 1972. The US spent over 20 billion dollars (about as much as to put men on the Moon) to build a ABM system called Spartan and Sprint (allowed by the 1972 Treaty) with about a dozen interceptors in North Dakota (Grand Forks AFB). The system was given to the USAF in 1974 and promtly mothballed then scrapped in 1975. It was judged that useless.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
