🚀 go-pugleaf

On Nov 8, 7:39 am, Travis <sulliv...@live.ca> wrote:
> Reagan Cold War Myth
>
> Under the assumption that the Soviet Union could not then outspend the US
> government in a renewed arms race, Reagan strove to make the Cold War
> economically and rhetorically hot. Many analysts argue that the eventual
> collapse of the Soviet Union was due more to the re-emergence of
> separatist movements under glasnost, an inherent weakness in communist
> economic theory, and the depressed global price of crude oil, on which the
> Soviet economy during those years depended heavily. Furthermore, Reagan's
> much heralded military buildup that increased American military spending
> by 8% per annum in fact did not appear to have the planned effect of
> forcing the Soviets to mirror American growth: according to CIA estimates,
> Soviet military spending leveled off at a growth rate of 1.3% per annum in
> 1975 and remained at that level for a decade, although it more than
> tripled to approximately 4.3% in 1985 through 1987 (though spending on
> offensive strategic weapons continued to grow at 1.3% during that period),
> before returning to 1.3% in 1988.
>
> Perhaps more startling, Reagan's military build up, coupled with his
> fierce anti-soviet rhetoric, contributed to Soviet near-panic reaction to
> a routine NATO exercises in November 1983, ABLE ARCHER 83. Though the
> threat of nuclear war ended abruptly with the end of the exercise, this
> historically obscure incident illustrates the possible negative
> repercussions of Reagan's "standing tall" to a nuclear power. Some
> historians, among them Beth B. Fischer in her book The Reagan Reversal,
> pin ABLE ARCHER 83 as an incident which had a profound effect on President
> Reagan and his turn from a policy of Confrontation towards the Soviet
> Union to a policy of rapprochement.
>
> ------
>
> <<
>
> There is now a near-consensus among historians that Mr. Reagan's policies
> not only failed to end the Cold War, but probably prolonged it for several
> years beyond its likely end date, by propelling the most reactionary
> Communists into power.
>
> From The Globe and Mail, 10/24/09:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/two-things-that-didnt-end-c...
> Two things that didn't end communism
>
> Reagan and 'people power': The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
> Wall offers a chance to demolish some of the myths
>
> By Doug Saunders
>
> ..........................................................................
> .
> ........................................... Archie Brown, the Scottish
> historian of the Eastern Bloc known for his pioneering work with
> declassified Soviet archives, has just published a massive and significant
> work titled "The Rise and Fall of Communism", full of lessons that are
> worth hearing today.
>
> The primary myth is the one that holds that the West, and particularly
> Ronald Reagan's United States, caused the ommunist bloc to collapse
> through a Cold War policy of confrontation and isolation.
>
> By this account, Mr. Reagan drove the Eastern Bloc into unconditional
> surrender by declaring the Soviet Union an “evil empire” in 1983, madly
> escalating the nuclear-arms count, launching “Star Wars” missile-defence
> networks and shouting, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” in Berlin in
> 1987.
>
> “This,” Mr. Brown says, “is a kind of triumphalist view … which I think is
> very misleading.”
>
> In fact, there is now a near-consensus among historians that Mr. Reagan's
> policies not only failed to end the Cold War, but probably prolonged it
> for several years beyond its likely end date, by propelling the most
> reactionary Communists into power.
>
> “The more belligerent the United States became, in terms of Reagan's
> rhetoric and in terms of arms buildup, the stronger the hard-liners became
> in Moscow,” Mr. Brown says.
>
> “Whenever the Cold War became colder, the most militant Communists, the
> KGB and the military-industrial complex within the Soviet Union became
> stronger.”
>
> In fact, the collapse of communism was probably made possible, and
> certainly rendered peaceful and non-violent, by quite another set of
> Western policies – the kinds of policies that are finally being revisited
> today as an alternative approach to such authoritarian governments as
> those of Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.
>
> West German governments, starting with chancellor Willy Brandt in the
> 1970s, decided to meet the Communist East with engagement and aid, not
> confrontation.
>
> These NeueOstpolitik (“new eastern policy”) tactics provided targeted
> financial assistance and even bought hundreds of dissidents out of prison.