Posted on 11/17/2015 8:53:31 AM PST by Trumpinator
Here’s what you said: “Putin unleashed the most brilliant execution of foreign policy gambits since Nixon the Great”
No mention of Reagan and the humiliation/dissolution of the USSR as a result of his policies.
It doesnt matter whether it was his intention to bankrupt/dissolve the USSR or not. Reagan was steadfast in promoting the growth of the US, and the inherent weakness of the Russian economy took over and basically she bankrupted herself trying to keep up.
Something that happened after Reagan left office and via a method not associated with Reagan's policies. Hence, Nixon is still the keenest foreign policy president and did more to cause the USSR to collapse than Reagan. It can be argued Reagan extended the USSR's time because they were unwilling to fall earlier than they could have.
Because the USA made peace with China, the red Chinese relaxed and ditched communism in practice if not in name by a whole decade than the USSR's collapse.
PS: We are talking about rankings so I have Reagan at number 2 and Bush, Sr at number 3. Nixon, I have at number 1 even though he was before my time.
Rankings in foreign policy smarts that is not domestic policy or anything like that.
Something that happened after Reagan left office and via a method not associated with Reagan’s policies.
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Yes, the USSR, for no reason at all, simply and spontaneously imploded in 1991 due to no outside influences at all.
Is that your thesis?
Or was it some super policy of GHWB?
Good thing the old order of the USSR did not begin to crack back in 1986 while Reagan was prez. Oh wait, yes it did.
It’s all Obama and our ridiculous “gender-sensitive” CIA/NSA idiots.
Is that your thesis?
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Yes, because communism does not work. If Reagan was never elected or never existed it the USSR would have fallen anyway, in the same way, more or less. Unless you want to tell me that communism does indeed work and it would have continued?
In any case this is like a Picard vs Kirk argument over who was the better captain.
U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a series of articles and interviews from 1975 onward discussed the possibility, indeed likelihood, of the breakup of the Soviet Empire.
Yes, because communism does not work. If Reagan was never elected or never existed it the USSR would have fallen anyway, in the same way, more or less.
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Your notion that the USSR, in a vacuum, with no outside influence spontaneously imploded in 1991 is ahistorical.
It denies that what happened on the fringes of the Soviet empire (let’s start with the Baltics) in the 80s (prior to your spontaneous implosion) had any bearing on the breakup.
It denies that the rapid buildup of the US Armed Forces under Reagan had an impact on the Soviet Union and her economy, which could not keep up with the guns and still provide the butter. Which opened the door for Gorbachev and Perestroika, under which the old Soviet Union could not exist.
And let’s not forget Poland and Lech Walesa.
It was because of these outside influences that led to the breakup of the Soviet empire. Her economy could not keep up.
Anyway, we’re unlikely to change each other’s views on this, so please feel free to get the last word in, as after this post, I think I’ve said all I can.
Cheers.
Your notion that the USSR, in a vacuum, with no outside influence spontaneously imploded in 1991 is ahistorical.
No, it accepts the idea that a communist empire that has shortages in toilet paper and uses worthless money will collapse no matter how big a military it has.
North Korea survives today because the Chinese want to keep a buffer state between them and South Korea and Japan.
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