[Brad from Tennessee]

Thanks for unique insight on this portion of Vietnamese history. The Vietnam War and the support they were obliged to provide after Saigon fell drained the USSR, just as did Cuba, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and other “victories” around the world. With a stagnant, artificial economy the Soviets finally spent all their gold, looted from Eastern Europe after World War II, on this expansion. Just prior to the Afghanistan invasion, foreign policy experts were predicting that the Soviets would either have to invade Western Europe, and loot it, or strike south to the Persian Gulf oil fields to survive.

[ThanhPhero]

The CIA assessments of the Soviet economy from the first one after WWII always estimated the USSR as having an economy about 50% of ours and expanding at about twice the rate that ours was. By 1980 the Soviet economy should have been way ahead of America. Reagan put in his own analysts to look at the data because he did not believe the CIA. Too bad for the USSR with that bit of second guessing. That was when he knew for certain that we could spend them into the ground. I wish Bush had the same insights about the CIA.