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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (207510)	12/6/2001 9:10:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

How to think about the Reagan Era: Does it make any sense that Reagan's behavior towards the Soviets had no effect on the final outcome? No, of course not, the politics of the Kremlin were at least as affected by our strategic competition as were the politics of the United States. Does it make any sense that the demise of the Soviet Union was postponed due to Reagan's behavior? No, the collapse was too sudden, unexpected, and speedy for that to make sense. Since Reagan obviously hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union, did he merely accelerate it by a few years, or by many years? A lot of what happened was a looming crisis between consumer dissatisfaction, with consequent restiveness towards the regime, and the military budget, which absorbed a much higher share of GDP than in the United States (almost 25%). The willingness of the United States to challenge the Soviets on several fronts, and the threat of SDI requiring a heavy investment in counter- measures, put a big strain on the regime. Many concessions were made to retain legitimacy, under the rubrics of glasnost and perestroika, including even relatively free elections, which put Yeltsin in power in Russia. When the Politburo finally decided to reign in Gorbachev, as they had Khruschev, it was too late. The populace was willing to rebel, and Yeltsin became the leading figure in the rebellion in Moscow. As this was coming to a head, there was no will to do what was required to hold some of the other states, and things began to unravel. Latvia boldly proclaimed itself independent of the Soviet Union, and the attempt to punish it was half- hearted. There was greater restiveness in the satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact. Personally, I knew it was all over when I watched the coup in Romania. The populace had had it, and was ready to fight. Given the thin layer of reliable party members in each of these countries, if the population ceased to be passive, they were doomed. Thus, it would seem that the Reagan Administration succeeded in hastening the crisis of Communism in the Eastern Bloc, and can be credited with making it all happen now, rather than in some distant future....