“the containment of Communism”
The success of the effort to contain communism is questionable. Of the three main superpowers today, neither Russia or China has a true communism. But neither can be stopped form what they want to do. We don’t have enough of a threat to stop Russia or China from doing what they want to do or how they want to go about it. And both countries not only are self sustaining in their military, but they are capable of destroying the world no different that we are. Conventional conflict is impossible as long as they care what it contains.
Russia has stepped in to Syria and has assisted them with all kinds of armaments that we are not being told about. So tossing a few missiles into Syria to hit “reported” caches of chemical weapons, probably originating from China through North Korea into the region is a good show, but is not going to stop anything.
And remember that Russia supplied the missiles to Saddam that he fired into Israel during the American “intervention” in Iraq and Kuwait.
Reagan beat Russia financially for about 5 minutes. He never stopped them from exporting weapons to the middle east as we were doing it too. And as late as Nov 14, 2016 - Russia and Iran negotiated the supply of $10 billion worth of weapons and hardware to Tehran following the successful delivery of Russia’s S-300 air defense missile systems to the country. Sound like they fell? Nope.
rwood
I lived through the Cold War, serving 32 years in the Army.
Your statement that “The success of the effort to contain communism is questionable.” Is ridiculous, if you are old enough to understand that the goal of communism was “world domination”, you would see this.
I watched Kruschev’s “We will bury you” speech on TV. I did the “duck and cover” through grade school.
You had to be there, Son! Your knowledge is based on the revisionist history, written by the liberal “intellectuals” who backed the losing side.
“Of the three main superpowers today...”
Pick another history book. You don’t have a clue.
Russia has the economy of France, it’s dependent on 2 exports, energy (which we can crush at will if we need to) and inferior war armaments.
Russia is a shadow of itself and diplomatically has isolated itself from its former sphere of influence.
It’s a 2nd tier nation with 3rd tier politics and dictator and 4 tier foreign policy with its main allies being rogue states like Iran, NKorea and Syria.
Do more reading and less posting until you comprehend the world in which you live. ...or keep posting and embarrassing yourself.