The Soviets were spreading their influence into Afghanistan.
I'm not sure that being up to your eyeballs in angry wildcats qualifies as "spreading influence".
and acting as patrons of Iraq, which was reasonably considered to be a threat to Middle Eastern oil.
The Iraqis played all powers - including us, like a stringed instrument - against all others; I don't think the Russians ever considered them a trusted ally. Iraq's moves were not made on behalf of the Soviets.
They were also expanding in the Caribbean and Central America.
How so? Does a successful struggle to be rid of a dictator automatically qualify as a Soviet victory?
most importantly, they were making substantial in- roads in Europe, encouraging a huge neutralist movement, and eroding our defensive posture.
I have always thought that the Soviet strategy was to create a lot of noise and threat in Europe, with no intention of making anything of it - they would have had more to lose than to gain in a European war - while gradually chewing us down in the Third World, where we could be counted on to support factions in weak positions and where much gain could be had for minimal input.
The tendency of strategists to prepare for the last war, rather than the next one, has often been mentioned. I think we spent most of the Cold War preparing for a rerun of World War 2, and I think we wasted a lot of money on it, not knowing where the real challenge was coming from.
I also, as you know, think that the reasons for the Soviet collapse were primarily internal and economic, rather than external and military, and that the Reagan policies may have accelerated it, but did not cause it.
Still hoping for an opinion out of Joan on that one....
I should point out that for anyone who seriously believed in Communist doctrine, the logical strategy would be to tie down as much of the enemy's resources as possible in an endless European faceoff, while encouraging the oppressed peoples of the world to rebel.
This whole picture seems to present a black/white Eurocentric view of the world, which I must say I find a bit simplistic....
You do realize, of course, that most of the people in the world in those years saw the great struggle of the day as north vs. south, not east vs. west. Perspective is everything. |
