Actually the last sentence in the first post is as follows.
"Thank you Ronald for your part in making it possible for the wall to fall."

My initial argument was not to give the man full credit but to at least have him and his policy's acknowledged in having an effect on the events. The biggest revisionists seem to be in the media, If it doesn't fit their leftest spin it didn't happen.

Same could be said about your opinion claiming more credits for Reagan than he deserves. ;) but you only do so under explicit ignoration of several facts that had been mentioned in this thread already.

You just claim more merit for America, or more precisely: a different quality of merits, than legitimately is yours, by all reason.

Never claimed that Regan deserved all the credit but rather that trying to say he had no influence is a misnomer.

But there I go ignoring my own advice.

Yall enjoy your debate now ;)

I am no conservative or Reagan lover, but he was one of the great American Presidents. And it was by more than just being at the right place at the right time, he was the right man for the time. Reagan saw the end was near for the USSR, and did everything he could to hasten it (mainly rhetoric and military spending/intimidation). I don't know if somebody else would have been so aggressive... he played the game well.

PD

No one can really argue that Reagan was solely responsible for the fall of the USSR. Frankly, the Soviet Union would have fallen regardless of Reagan's policies. It's economic system was, by and large, incompatible with the larger, more effective economies seen in the West. In other words, whatever they spent was well and truly gone. Due to capitalistic systems in place in the West, much of the money that was spent there was recycled and funnelled into other industries.

So when the USSR began spending 20+% of its GDP on defense, they were actually losing roughly a fifth of their total resources. However, when the US spent FAR LESS of its GDP on its military, the resources being tied up were even a smaller percentage, as much of that money went towards the creation or securing of further resources themselves.

In other words, the growth of the US military directly led to growth in the US economy. On the other hand, the growth in the USSR military led to depressing the Soviet economy.

Money was being SPENT in the USSR. Money was being CIRCULATED in the United States.

Alas, capitalism bites another one in the ass.

Ultimately, Reagan understood this very simple concept - capitalism can spend (to an extent) and sustain growth. Socialism cannot. Its markets reflects what the STATE thinks a commodity's value is - not what the value ACTUALLY is.

Therefore, we merely had to spend them into oblivion.

Like I said, however - I don't believe that the USSR would have survived without Reagan. But I do believe that Reagan hastened its death considerably.

I agree 100% with Stealth Hunter. It was people of Eastern Germany who brought down the wall as well as it was people of Russia who brought the communist regime down. I was there I know what I am talking about. People actually laugh when they hear Americans saying the US won the Cold War. There was no Americans around when people were standing against the tanks. Some of those people I know personally, they do not even like Reagan.

First off, just because one is in the vicinity of an event occuring, it in no way means that person knows what they are talking about.

Secondly, you're clearly taking the very short-sighted view. Did you bother to consider what actions brought to bear the economic pressures that caused the people in Eastern Germany and the USSR to be susceptible to this type of revolution? Sure, those people did the legwork - legwork that wouldn't have been possible had the USSR not spent itself into oblivion.

And finally, yes - the West (the US specifically) won the Cold War. It's over, and of its two main participants, the Cold War claimed the existance of one, while the other remains standing tall.

That would be victory, friend.

Though the same can be said for a person who is not in the vicinity of an event occurring. Indeed moreso.

The thing that killed the Russians in the end was indeed tied into the economic side of things, but not on the part of the United States. Or the Western World for that matter. The USSR killed itself in the end. Blundering military escapades in the Middle East, production and job problems, central planning issues, and a general desire among the people to switch over to a more Democratic Republican form of government, combined with the fact that it was just too massive to manage without incurring serious problems from present problems. Again, it was like the Roman Empire: too big, too many differences among the people in terms of politics, too many problems with trade, finances, and the economy, and too much money with nothing to do with it (or at least implement it effectively).

What are you talking about? The Cold War didn't just end willy-nilly when Communist Russia died. You forget that it was about Communism as a whole, containing it and eradicating it from the face of the Earth. And that was an appalling failure on the part of the United States (and West in general). Cuba's still Communist, China is now a major superpower (bigger than us in terms of population, military strength, and production to name a few things off a long list), Vietnam didn't change any after the United States pulled out of the war (other than becoming a key player in the list of Communist states), and North Korea isn't getting along too well right now with South Korea.

Tall... lol. Yet people all over (here alone) are chiming in that the Health Care Reform bill will bring about the death of the United States as we know it; at least they're quick to remember and return to reality that our economy is in shambles, we're borrowing money from China, our job situation (while it has improved) is still pitiful, and we're still fighting (and losing) a war in the Middle East on two fronts. Seems rather foolishly bold to say "tall".

I wonder if the Chinese were reading this how they'd be reacting right now. Probably laughing their asses off. Can't blame them.:haha:

Indeed, the same could be said.

Not moreso. Not less so.I don't necessarily disagree with that. However, there are some points to be made. First, the central committee hardly ever cared about the will of the people regarding anything. However, especially following Chernobyl, there was somewhat of a cry for glasnost, as additional transparency would likely have saved lives in that event.

Next, the Soviet adventures in the middle east were indeed costly, made costlier by the fact that they were proxy wars with the United States.

Finally - and I wonder why you gloss over this - the spending of roughly a quarter of their GDP for military build-up in response to Reagan led them into the economic abyss. Under previous administrations they got off rather easily in comparison, what with repeated and sustained calls for detente. Reagan abandoned that approach and literally FORCED them into reactionary spending through a US build-up and a shift in American policy and rhetoric.Nice try at "gotcha".

Except that, historically speaking the Cold War is considered to have ended in 1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

And your description of the Cold War is, well, uninformed at best.

Here's a more apt one, from the above link: Note the date beside "Cold War".10% unemployment is not hot, but its certainly not an economy in shambles.

But standing tall means far more than economic inconvieniences. Like it or not, the US is a nation quite capable of imposing its will world wide. That is standing tall.Actually, I think they'd be laughing, along with me, at your complete misunderstanding at the historical period the phrase "Cold War" refers to.

The Chinese were bit players during the Cold War, despite their communist regime. That's because the Cold War wasn't about communism - it was about communist expansion, primarily westward.

Being far away doesn't mean that person knows what they are talking about either. Actually less so. And that's the whole point.

How about giving some actual links to facts that "the USSR had spent itself to oblivion". Are you saying they owed money to someone? Who? How much?

Or in fact the Russians won because there was no third world war against them, just like there was two in the earlier half of the 20th century. Of which both were won by the Russian people. And they actually had to do some fighting on their own soil, for the survival of their people. Not just bombing Japanese and German civilians from high in the air.

Pink Floyd was the real reason! :O:

I thought there was a covert mission by Floyd. So those pigs flying really meant something:hmmm:

All in all its just another brick in the wall....

Go on do it agin.

How can you have any puddng if you dont eat your meat ;)

You mean, by not being at the actual event but by listening to the Fox news, one would get a better idea on what's going on :o

Economic pressures on population as being the main reason for the revolution in the USSR is to large extent a myth cultivated by US and western media. In seventies despite high oil prices, those economic pressures on the population were much worse compared to eighties (again speaking from experience of being there, not from listening to the media).

Stealth Hunter offered quite a view by comparing the USSR destruction with that of the Roman empire but I do not think that is it.

The starting and important point here is Gorbachev. He was a politician of new generation and formation. Naturally, he was and actually is a strong communism supporter but long before getting into power he thought that the actual system is wrong. He wanted to revise the system but underestimated the fact that Russia as whole its history says is a country of extremes. Instead, people started to push hard for having all the changes immediately which broke the whole thing.

Man alive - everything from the "cold war" was about defeating communism of any kind, and not just staring down a communist entity that had a deep seated desire to unite Western Europe, and would have been able to, had it not been for the US and its "M.A.D." strategy - to a claim that America had nothing to do with the fall the berlin wall, or of the soviet union.

That's like saying the Germanic Barbarians had nothing to do with Rome falling.

Now, I am going to give a rather balanced view. The USSR was rotten inside, ripe with corruption and repressed strife. It was led by a bold reformer who believed in the IDEALS of communism, and was driven to push the system to fulfill those ideals.

Lets face facts here - Communism is the PERFECT "equality" system - in theory. However, it is never attainable because it relies on the absence of base traits that exist in every man. Mikhail failed to understand that there was this fatal flaw in the system. He thought that by clearing out the corruption that could be found, by making the government transparent to the people, they would support the system. Instead, they saw how the system was a total failure. They were thus 'ripe' for something different.

Reagan offered that. He repeatedly and publicly challenged the Soviet leadership with the visible prosperity of the US, and endorsed a free society with free markets as the way the people of the Soviet Republic could attain that prosperity. A people can be looking for something different, but in Reagan's work they saw what they were looking for, and demanded that their government provide it. This was something the Soviet leadership had not prepared for. Gorbachev still thought the system could be saved, if only it could be purged into a pure system. The Party leaders - in whom much of the corruption was due to, resisted because it was a threat to their power. Mikhail was caught between 3 opposing forces, and he realized that his own survival, both politically and likely physically, rested in creating an ally out of one of them. He turned to the only one that had any long term record of success - and that was the US. Had he tried to appease the hardliners, the financial situation would have simply worsened, with no salvation possible until the system completely crumbled under its own weight. This would have required him go against the people, which would have Tianimen look like a girl scout picnic. Second option - give the people what they want, was to destroy the system he believed in so much. The last option, open the government, provide a tool for prosperity (aka a free market) in the hopes that it could stabilize the situation and then allow for a resurgence of communal thought, was the only option he could see as even plausible. With the US as a "model" and a thaw in the cold war, he could claim a "kinship" of spirit with Reagan, and later Bush, to placate the people into believing he was doing all he could to change the system. It was simply the only way he could stay in power.

Remember - the Soviet premiership at that time was nowhere near as powerful as it had been just decades ago. Yuri Andropov changed everything when it came to that equation.

It was not JUST Ronald Reagan. It was not JUST Mikhail Gorbochev. It was NOT just the economic and political pressures from outside the USSR. It was not JUST the rotten core of the Soviet Union.

It was the convergence of these leaders, at that time, with those factors, that created the outcome of the wall falling, and the later breakup of the Soviet "republic".

The foundations for the wall coming down were laid in the early 1980's, by not one single leader or one single factor. To try and minimize the impact each of the leaders and each country had on the equation is to either seriously misunderstand history, or is an attempt to score a political point at the cost of intellectual honesty.