That is, overall, the defeat of the Soviet Union went according to a far-sighted strategic plan, conceived by Reagan, who could see Soviet weaknesses
Some detailed plan no but Regan did see weakness and chalanged it. It is true however that the biggest reason for the defense spending increases was that our defense had been neglected in the 70s and needed the increase (which actually started under Carter but he didn't go far enough).
They revived the B-1 bomber and recommissioned two World War II-era battleships. They planned for a six-hundred-ship navy. They bought toilet seats at $600 each, and an Air Force airborne coffee maker for $14,000. Meanwhile, Soviet defense outlays continued to grow modestly, and increased as a percentage of gross domestic product largely because the civilian sector was collapsing.
The B-1 bomber program meade some sense because the stategic bombers that we did have (B-52s) were old and getting older. It wasn't the best run weapons program though. The WWII era batteships where rather useful, and were cheap to bring active. The problem is they are expensive to keep active (crew and maintaince and feul costs). We got our money's worth from them in Dessert Storm. They only cost about as much as a new frigate to modernize and make active. They provide tough mobile very heavy artilary support for any operation near a coast. But with declineing defense budgets and high operations costs they may be a luxury we can't afford right now. As for the toilet seat and coffe maker they are good examples of government inefficancy that happens anyware in the government not just the military. They are also not typical costs of course but scratch any large government program deeply enough and you can find examples of waste and fraud. My understanding is this was waste not fraud. The toilet seats and coffee makers where contracted out to the company that made the weapon systems that they were installed on. The specs for them where rediculously detailed. The government wouldn't contract for a toilet seat and just get a decent seat, they would contract for a toilet seat that had to meat 50 pages or more of detailed specs most of which were meaningless. This type of mismangements should be rooted out whenever possible.
In fact, Reagan and his conservative allies had inflated the Soviet threat, announced, but did not fully build, a defense program to resist it,
The conventional build up which did happen was most of what wad done to defend against the Soviet threat. Your right that the Soviet Union was poor. But that does not mean it was not very powerful.
Defense spending was surely a strain on the Kremlin, but that was an argument for reducing defense spending through arms control or retrenchment.
Why? Arms control and retrenchment would have been tools for living peacefully with the "evil empire" (and it truely was an evil empire as impolitic as it was to say that), if it wanted peace. Defense spending and challangeing the Soviet Union was a way to prepare ourselves if it didn't want peace and a way to push them over their limits eventually helping to cause the regime to disolve.
Tim |
