Ann Coulter writes some good stuff, but I don't recall seeing her labeled a "Soviet Space Expert".
On Sputnik and the fall of the USSR she has a huge timeline problem. Sputnik was 1957. The USSR didnt collapse until 1989 and that was Reagan that did it, not Sputnik. The Soviet’s went broke on the military because Reagan stood up to them. Just a few years earlier under Carter they were rolling into country after country hardly broke from Sputnik in 1957. Read Ann Coulters book Treason.
Ann Coulter writes some good stuff, but I don’t recall seeing her labeled a “Soviet Space Expert”.
And there is no conflict between Coulter and Palin on the major issue here. It’s simply a contrivance of the other poster.
Palin’s point is that the precedent for the Soviets losing an arms race (or a tech race) was foretold in the space race. If you mark the launch of Sputnik as the END of a race, the Soviets won. But if you mark it as the beginning of a race...
When decades later the Sovs were hanging by a thread under the challenge of Reagan, the loss of the space race in the 1960s simply gave them less faith they could win and thus less reason to hang on.
An argument FOR that might have been available to hard-liners in Moscow was gone. An argument AGAINST was rooted in history. History had already recorded that they LOST tech races with us. “Back then it was Reagan, and he understood.”
Today it is Sarah, and she does too.
(And the citation of Treason by the other poster is errant.)