Great read.
Posted on 06/13/2004 11:57:46 AM PDT by Redcloak
MOSCOW (AP) -- He stunned the Soviet Union with his tough rhetoric, calling it an "evil empire" whose leaders gave themselves the "right to commit any crime."
His famed "Star Wars" program drew the Soviets into a costly arms race it couldn't afford. His 1987 declaration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall -- "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" -- was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War.
Ronald Reagan's determination to destroy communism and the Soviet Union was a hallmark of his eight-year presidency, carried out through a harsh nuclear policy toward Moscow that softened only slightly when Gorbachev came to office.
He is vividly remembered in Russia today as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse.
"Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal," said Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.
Reagan's agenda toward Moscow started shortly after the start of his first term -- and marked a major departure from the mild detente of the Jimmy Carter administration.
In 1981, Reagan backed his rhetoric with a trillion dollar defense buildup. U.S.-Soviet arms control talks collapsed, and the two nations targeted intermediate-range nuclear missiles at each other across the Iron Curtain in Europe.
The deployment of the U.S. missiles in Europe rattled the Kremlin's nerves, because of the shorter time they needed to reach targets in the Soviet Union compared to intercontinental missiles deployed in the United States.
In an even bigger shock to the Kremlin, Reagan in 1983 launched an effort to build a shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles involving space-based weapons.
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), dubbed "Star Wars," dumped the previous doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction that assumed that neither side would start a nuclear war because it would not be able to avoid imminent destruction.
Even though Reagan's "Star Wars" never led to the deployment of an actual missile shield, it drew the Soviets into a costly effort to mount a response. Many analysts agree that the race drained Soviet coffers and triggered the economic difficulties that sped up the Soviet collapse in 1991.
"Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail," Gerasimov told The Associated Press. "The Soviet Union tried to keep up pace with the U.S. military buildup, but the Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition."
Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, praised Reagan for his tough course toward the Soviet Union.
"I consider Ronald Reagan one of the greatest U.S. presidents since the World War II because of his staunch resistance to Communism and his efforts to defend human rights," Bonner said in a telephone interview from her home in Boston. "Reagan's policy was consistent and precise, and he had a great talent of choosing the right people for his administration."
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, 61, remembered Reagan fondly for his humor and his toughness.
"His phrase, 'evil empire,' became a household word in Russia," said Bukovsky, who now lives in Cambridge, England. "Russians like a staightforward person, be he enemy or friend. They despise a wishy-washy person."
Retired Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin said that trying to field a response to Reagan's Star Wars had "certainly contributed" to Soviet economic demise but argued it didn't play the decisive role.
"The Soviet economy was extremely inefficient and nothing could save it," said Dvorkin, a senior Soviet arms control negotiator during the 1980s.
But Bonner said her husband -- who had played a key role in designing Soviet nuclear weapons -- believed that deploying U.S. missiles in Europe was necessary to bring the Soviet rulers back to the arms control talks.
In December 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty that for the first time eliminated the entire class of intermediate-range missiles.
"Reagan and Gorbachev helped end the Cold War," Gerasimov said.
It's amazing to watch American liberals argue about something that so many ex-"Soviets"...including those intimately involved, acknowledge.
I've even been reading quotes from MIT, Columbia and other universities, where the leading intellectuals of the day were saying just the opposite they are saying today...which is that the USSR was imploding. Sure, it eventually imploded...but not inspite of Reagan; because of Reagan.
The fact is, the USSR was engaged in its largest expansionism since WWII, between the years of 1974-1979. If the USSR has succeded in establishing these proxy governments, they would've had new trading partners that would've coalesced to form an economic bloc similar to the Tripartite pact prior to WWII. This would've brought new wealth/booty to the Soviet Union...especially in regions like Afghanistan were they were just stones-throw away from the wealth in the Mid-East.
One of the great destabilizing forces behind the Iran-Revolution (besides the fundamental movement) was the Soviet-insurgent support from within Afghanistan. The Soviet's supported sympathetic Shi'ites in their cross-border inserections into Iran, as the Tudeh Party was also infiltrated with Communists sympathizers. This is why things like Iran/Contra were a little more complicated than what our narrow-mined media made them out to be.
Redcloak, thanks for finding the source article and posting
"I've even been reading quotes from MIT, Columbia and other universities, where the leading
intellectuals of the day were saying just the opposite they are saying today...
which is that the USSR was imploding. "
If you haven't caught it yet, this should make for fun reading.
Some of these professors and historians are more afflicted with dementia than RR
was on his last day.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1148542/posts
Thanks. I read that thread, as there was also a Reagan website that had a lot of these "intellectual's" quotes. It's sad to watch liberals move goal-posts and change history.
pinging you to post#8, in case you've not seen it yet.
Wow!
A self-described paleoconservative giving homage to the standard bearer of the neocon revolution?
Amazing!
A paper trail of top-secret presidential directives show that in early 1982, President Reagan and a few key advisors began mapping out a strategic offensive designed to attack the fundamental weaknesses of the Soviet system. Click here:
http://www.iwp.edu/news/bookID.17/book_detail.asp
Reagan brought pressure on the Soviet Union in at least four deliberate ways. First, through increased defense spending and the threat of SDI.
Secondly, by crippling their inefficient economy. This included delaying the Soviet gas pipeline to western Europe (they had been counting on it for additional currency), making a deal with Saudi Arabia to drastically drop oil prices (oil exports were the main revenue for the USSR), and slowing the flow of western high technology to the eastern bloc. Altogether, Reagan's economic war deprived the Soviet Union of at least $15 billion a year in hard currency, at a time when their total earnings were only about $32 billion.
Reagan also decided to turn the tables against the Soviet Union by supporting guerilla insurgencies. This step raised the cost of the Soviet Empire in terms of money and blood, most notably in Afghanistan. Reagan sent 8 million a year to help the Polish underground alone, including sophisticated communication equipment and fax machines so they could organize.
Finally, he successfully marshaled world opinion against the Soviets. His crusading “Evil Empire” speeches rallied stalwart anti-Communists such as Margaret Thatcher and the Pope. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, Ronald Reagan became the focus of Europeans leaders who cooperated in the cause of freedom.
This group of Reagan strategies is what brought the Soviets to the disarmament bargaining table, and eventually pressured their system to the point of collapse.
Thanks!
That's great.
It's mostly on domestic policy where I disagree with neocons.
I was watching Bush 41 do his parachute jump today, and it occurred to me that he never tried to take credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, even though it occurred on his watch. I wonder how Clinton would have reacted?
You mean such as support of free trade?
Like Reagan's support of NAFTA?
Or how about increased government spending, like Reagan?
If Bush 41 had been nominated instead of Reagan in 1980 or Reagan had not survived the assassination attempt in March 1981, perhaps the Soviet Union might not have collapsed on Bush 41's watch. It was due to Reagan's foreign policy that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse in Bush's term. Bush 41 should get credit for making sure the collapse happened peacefully and not recognizing the coup leaders as the legitimate government of the Soviet Union. If the US had recognized the coup leaders as the government of the Soviet Union, it is possible that the protests to the coup would have been put down with much bloodshed similar to the end of the Tienanmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.
No. Lots of neocons are "former" liberals who still support lots of the liberal social agenda. Like Jeanne Kirkpatrick they don't mind federal government getting involved in running programs like Social Security that are not authorized by the US Constitution. Lots of neocons are quite hostile to states rights. They don't care about the original intent of the Constitution. They also aren't bothered by the federal courts usurping power from the states and Congress.
"Former" liberals?
So, no one is allowed to mature and change their minds?
Reagan was a former Democrat, wasn't he?
As a paleocon, how do you feel about Reagan's policies designed to end communism in the world?
His interventions in Central, South America, and the Caribbean to stop the spread of Castro's power, and his direct attack on world-wide Soviet communism?
Exactly what is it that a paleocon such as yourself have in common with President Ronald Reagan?
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