Wrong, it was Gorbachev and the liberals in Russia who ended the Soviet Union, along with many other heros, a long list who put their lives on the line to end it. It started long before Reagan was on the scene. Carter and SALT II, the Pope, Russian capitalists, Israel, The Beatles, rock n' roll, the Russian mafia, the nuclear freeze movement, the Mujeheddin, the costly futile failures in Vietnam and Afghanistan, Lech Walensa, Baltic State leaders, the Germany willingness to basically buy East Germany, etc. etc.
Reagan presided over it and deserves some credit but the Soviet Union would have ended then with or without MX Missile or Star Wars. Those boondoggle military albatrosses were completely useless and never worked. Just huge wastes of money, some of which was used on lobbyists putting out that out of control defense spending ended the threat.
Actually the anti nuclear movement probably had more effect because the young generation across Europe and the Soviet Union was demanding the Cold War end and they were coming into power.
Also fact, when Reagan said "tear down this wall", the Soviet Union was already gone, so it was basically just cheerleading. Reagan did not cause the Berlin Wall to come down. It was coming down anyway. |
