| Fascinating. You do not even understand the thesis you purport to be arguing against. The question, after all, is why was there no military crack- down in the Eastern bloc countries, as there had been in Prague in '68 or against Solidaridarity in Poland in the early '80's. The answer is that Reagan caused a strategic shift in the Kremlin which led them to mount a peace offensive, and to appoint someone with reformist tendencies as their leader. Reagan employed a tit- for- tat strategy: the Soviets were rewarded for good behavior, and penalized for bad behavior. This encouraged further liberalization, until matters got out of control, and the authorities were paralyzed against massive reprisals in the endgame. With defense spending at nearly 25% of GDP, the mere threat of SDI raised the specter of bankruptcy for the Soviet Union, and made both detente with the United States and reform of the system particularly urgent. The turning point was probably Reykjavik, when Reagan torpedoed a comprehensive deal on nuclear rollback by his unwillingness to put SDI on the table. This immediately raised public support of SDI in the United States, and convinced the Soviets that the situation was fairly desperate. This is, of course, a thumbnail of a more complicated set of events....... |
