So where was Reagan in all this, playing hop scotch?

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

Well really, he wasn't a damaging president. Reagan, I mean. He was just the kind that didn't take very much (if any) action when a situation arose. And most of the actions he did take were ineffective in the end. They just sort of... faded away into the annals of history, no consequences or effects felt. He was charismatic, there's no denying that; and it was through his charisma that he was capable of exceptional acts of persuasion. To put it bluntly, he became famous and well-known because of said charisma and persuasion feats, but in reality his time in office yielded dull and meh results.

I can tell you one thing. If we had a President Like Jimmy Carter during this time, the wall never would have fallen. Jimmy Carter was nothing more than Brezhnev's lapdog. Offering every concession he could manage to embolden Soviet positioning at the expense of American geo-politics. Carter and Democrats like him presented no pressure to the Kremlin in any way at all. The Soviets never had any reason to pursue "glasnost" policy or "perestroika" with Carter in the Oval Office.

When Reagan was inaugurated, he began a program designed to apply vast amounts of pressure on the Soviet military machine, and their positioning in global geo-politics. It was a vast series of moves. Most of us remember the effects in pursuing military programs en masse that the Soviets had little answer to. All were very aggressive. Some of these things heavily pursued and pushed for from Reagan's administration were the B-2 program and stealth technology in general, the Seawolf SSN program, the Peacekeeper missile program, more cruise missile capabilities, hit to kill technology directives against ICBM's, etc. Reagan made a nuclear war a complete losing proposition for the Soviets and had assured them that we would intend to build an infrastructure capable of nullifying much of their offensive capabilities. And to add insult to injury, we would share the technology with them. Not only did Reagan do these things, yet he was also extremely critical of Soviet oppression as a whole. He never let up one minute. Some of the biggest help for the Soviets in our own government came from the Tip O'Niel Democrats in Congress.

Simply put, the Soviets were unable to respond to any of the things pursued aggressively by the Reagan Administration. Nor could they respond to the heavily criticized Soviet restrictive society which Reagan criticized in the same room with Gorby over an American style steak dinner. The Soviets had also been kicked in the nutz hard in Afghanistan, which many people in the Reagan government at the time will still probably neither confirm or deny any involvement.

Trying to remove Reagan's role is merely a ludicrous and total distortion of history. I know people wish history isn't what it truly is sometimes. But it is nevertheless what it is. Guarandamnteed if Carter, then Mondale would have been at the helm, there would never have been any pressure at all for the Soviets to allow for their collapse. Without the military and geo-political pressure....no glasnost, no perestroika, and no reason to fear WW3 against a weak-kneed, concession offering President like Carter, if there were problems, dissent, or chaos at the Berlin Wall. The Germans had nothing to do with this also. The Soviets themselves could have used 1/10th of it's air and armor in the region to deal with them.

Reagan did what he did, and got what he wanted by his actions. Without him in his role...it would have never happened. Nor would there be reason for it to happen without Reagan's role.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

I can tell you one thing. If we had a President Like Jimmy Carter during this time, the wall never would have fallen. Jimmy Carter was nothing more than Brezhnev's lapdog. Offering every concession he could manage to embolden Soviet positioning at the expense of American geo-politics. Carter and Democrats like him presented no pressure to the Kremlin in any way at all. The Soviets never had any reason to pursue "glasnost" policy or "perestroika" with Carter in the Oval Office.

When Reagan was inaugurated, he began a program designed to apply vast amounts of pressure on the Soviet military machine, and their positioning in global geo-politics. It was a vast series of moves. Most of us remember the effects in pursuing military programs en masse that the Soviets had little answer to. All were very aggressive. Some of these things heavily pursued and pushed for from Reagan's administration were the B-2 program and stealth technology in general, the Seawolf SSN program, the Peacekeeper missile program, more cruise missile capabilities, hit to kill technology directives against ICBM's, etc. Reagan made a nuclear war a complete losing proposition for the Soviets and had assured them that we would intend to build an infrastructure capable of nullifying much of their offensive capabilities. And to add insult to injury, we would share the technology with them. Not only did Reagan do these things, yet he was also extremely critical of Soviet oppression as a whole. He never let up one minute. Some of the biggest help for the Soviets in our own government came from the Tip O'Niel Democrats in Congress.

Simply put, the Soviets were unable to respond to any of the things pursued aggressively by the Reagan Administration. Nor could they respond to the heavily criticized Soviet restrictive society which Reagan criticized in the same room with Gorby over an American style steak dinner. The Soviets had also been kicked in the nutz hard in Afghanistan, which many people in the Reagan government at the time will still probably neither confirm or deny any involvement.

Trying to remove Reagan's role is merely a ludicrous and total distortion of history. I know people wish history isn't what it truly is sometimes. But it is nevertheless what it is. Guarandamnteed if Carter, then Mondale would have been at the helm, there would never have been any pressure at all for the Soviets to allow for their collapse. Without the military and geo-political pressure....no glasnost, no perestroika, and no reason to fear WW3 against a weak-kneed, concession offering President like Carter, if there were problems, dissent, or chaos at the Berlin Wall. The Germans had nothing to do with this also. The Soviets themselves could have used 1/10th of it's air and armor in the region to deal with them.

Reagan did what he did, and got what he wanted by his actions. Without him in his role...it would have never happened. Nor would there be reason for it to happen without Reagan's role.

Thank you

Without Reagan's leadership, the Russians would still own East Germany.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Thank you

Without Reagan's leadership, the Russians would still own East Germany.

Indeed.

It makes me wonder why people of certain political ideologies will do whatever they can to minimize the accomplishments of those on the other side...

I mean, one REALLY has to spin and avoid reality to not see the impact that Reagan had on the former USSR.

Oh yea, it was Reagan who one evening appeared at the wall with a sledge hammer and started hammering away. By next morning he'd demolished most of it and all those germanians gathered around to gaze at Ronnie hammering away at the wall and Ronnies muscles glistening in the sun and all the germanians yelled "Yeee, Ronnie!".

[Freiwillige]

He built up the U.S. military to its greatest size since WWII knowing full well that Russia would try and follow suite. We with the west could more than afford the expenditure knowing that Russia could not. In the end his 8 year boost and aggressive policy's towards the C.C.C.P. bankrupt them into collapse and left the U.S. the only superpower in the world.

It only took 20 years of mismanagement to put us where we are today. I love politicians

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

He built up the U.S. military to its greatest size since WWII knowing full well that Russia would try and follow suite.

Actually the Soviets didn't try to follow suit and didn't follow up with SDI which is often touted as the "thing that brought the USSR down". Any other suggestions?

We with the west could more than afford the expenditure knowing that Russia could not. In the end his 8 year boost and aggressive policy's towards the C.C.C.P. bankrupt them into collapse and left the U.S. the only superpower in the world.

It only took 20 years of mismanagement to put us where we are today. I love politicians

Oh, the west could afford it? How? Does money grow in trees in the west? The money that is put into the military in the west is not put into some other place, for example road maintenance or building oil drilling equipment. The USSR came to an end because people like Gorbachov and Honecker decided that it had come to an end. That's about it.

That's why Gorbachov is very popular in Germany and George Bush sr. (or jr.) isn't.

And the US hasn't been a superpower in the world since the 50's.

[Aramike]

Actually the Soviets didn't try to follow suit and didn't follow up with SDI which is often touted as the "thing that brought the USSR down". Any other suggestions?

LOL!!! Rather, LMAO!!!

REALLY? The Soviets did NOT follow suit?

It seems that it is a well documented fact that, under Reagan, the US increased military spending to 7% of GDP. In response, the Soviets increased military spending to ... wait for it ... 27% of their GDP.

Even the most conservative estimates of Soviet spending in response to Reagan's build up run to around 17% of their GDP.

http://wais.stanford.edu/History/his...randreagan.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaps...on_of_the_USSR


Yeah, you're about as wrong as you can be on that point, pal. To the point of humor.

Oh, and as an aside, I've never met anyone who thought that SDI had anything to do with bringing down the USSR, and I'm wondering where you gleaned that line of reasoning from.

Oh, the west could afford it? How? Does money grow in trees in the west? The money that is put into the military in the west is not put into some other place, for example road maintenance or building oil drilling equipment. The USSR came to an end because people like Gorbachov and Honecker decided that it had come to an end. That's about it.

That entire comment is a joke on so many levels, I don't know where to begin.

Yes, the west could afford it. The western nations are still enjoying prosperity. The USSR isn't around. That's point one.

Point two is that the USSR collapsed because of Gorbechev's failed perestroika, which he felt was necessary in large part due to the economic ruin military spending had imposed upon the USSR. Ol' Gorbie didn't DECIDE to see the end of the USSR - he tried to reform the USSR, and that reform had UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES which led to its end.

Point three is something called "glasnost". That meant that he had decided upon a policy of enhanced government transparency. Ultimately, that meant the people began to realize how bad off they really were. Oh, and that impoverishment was largely due to incredible amounts of GDP being allocated to military spending.

Again, I wonder why it is that people of opposing political ideologies seem to ALWAYS reduce themselves to bending, twisting, and outright ignoring the facts whenever it pertains to the opposition being responsible for something good and impactful...

[Freiwillige]

The Reagan Doctrin

Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in "Beyond Oil" that the Reagan Administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit from selling their oil, so that the USSR's hard currency reserves became depleted.

America's vast military build up caused Russian defense expenditures the escalate from 15 to 17% in the early eighties to above 30% towards the end.

Reagan also had other ideas to hurt the Soviet economy like reducing Europe's dependence on Russian natural Gas.

The Communists were running out of time but they could have staved off total defeat and re inflated their economic situation had it not been for Reagan's Doctrine.

Aramike,

the link you provided (the Wikipedia one doesn't really cover the issue) only claims that Reagan had some influence in it. Some. So the argument here is did Reagan have some influence in the collapse or none at all. Am I right here?

So, how do we go about proving that Reagan had even some influence? And also that the main decisions weren't made by people like Gorbachov, Honecker and other similar East-European leaders?

Also from the link you provided:

"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."

So you never heard this claim before? Granted that the writer doesn't link the SDI directly with the collapse of the USSR but as a part of the process that led to the collapse.

[Skybird]

It is widely believed over here that America tend to exaggerate Reagan's role in it, and has a very different view of the meaning of it all as well, thinking of it in terms of a total victory of the capitalistic system that now took over the world, and so on. I tend to agree with that scepticism on the american view of it all. The Soviet union would have been mismanaged even without an arms race, and Gorbatchev certainly did not react to american pressure in general when allowing Germany off the hook. He has said repeatedly that the USSR had brought itself into a mess all by itself, the arms race just contibuting to the general mess. In fact, as I posted it, Washington even called him to think about sending troops to keep the situation in Eastgermany under control", initially. To be fair, Washington gave up it's resistence earlier than the French and British, already in January at the latest it was official policy to now support reunification, not only in lip-confessions, but in solid policy. the French took longer, and Thather needed to be fought against by her own staff until late spring the following year, for she was icy about Germany.

As a forestory to reunification, I think the blow delivered to the Soviet system by Polish Solidarnosc and a series of unforseeable, lucky events and misunderstandings leading thr Hungarians to make decisions that were not talked about with the Russians first, were much more important.

Reagan gets overestimated very massively in egneral, like Kennedy too. The merit of American policy in the cold war is that it made a clear statem,ent that an invasion into the West would necessarily lead to a war with america as well. But without the braveness of the Poles andhungarians and eastgermans, that alone would not have meant much to enforce reunification. In fact, German reunification was no goal in American, British, Russian, Eastgerman or French politics at all. the only nation on Earth that had clearly set it's sights on reunifiaction and explciitly said so, was Wetsgermany (which does not mean that the events of autumn 1989 had been forseen, planned or adminsitred by the Westgermans - we were overrolled by events as much like anyone else.

The triggering factor were the people marching in protest in Eastgerman streets, who were refusing to be intimidated by the tools of power anymore. the opening of the border, btw, was an accident. The spokesman of the Eastern regime, who in a press confernece even almost forgot to mention that Eastgermans had won their right to travel freely, and needed to be asked for it by a reporter, oversaw that their was a timeline saying that this was not valid until 0400 the next day. Instead he said that according to his knowledge this was valid from rifght the present moment on. Less than one hour later masses and masses of people stormed the wall. It went so quickly that even th eastgerman borderguards were paralysed and knew of nothing. There were some calm heads on duty that night, ordering the magazines of their servicemen's weapons to be collected and kept separate from weapons. and one officer'S private initiative it finally was that led to the first gate beeing opened uncontrolled - before people had to stand in line and got a stamp in their papers - and even the wrong stamp, which said that they had been expatriated.

you see, in those weeks there were so many individual, singular events, curious stories, which were not coordinated and ordered at all. It was a spectacle that ran by itself, almost, and really very undirected. I still see it as a miracle that nothing, really nothing serious happened. and it started weeks earlier, with flocks of Eastgermans fleeing via the green Hungarian border, and the German embassy that was besieged for long (one of the most famous unfinished sentences of history being spoken there, the scene today sends tears to my eyes).