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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (16059)	1/11/2002 5:57:53 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, Gorbachev and the others were new men who didn't have blood on their hands nor heart to kill millions of their compatriots in defense of a Perfectly Stupid Idea. That's why the Soviet communists fell apart. To the degree they "won" in NKorea it's a perfect picture ofthe Ultimately Stupid Idea come alive. With regard to Vietnam the US left without ever fighting a militarily effective war, although I believe they never lost a battle - much like the Soviets in Afghanistan. (With respect to both, I never saw a dumber imperial arrangement - both N Korea and Vietnam cost the soviets plenty. I always thought the idea of empire was to bring home the booty. Mind you, their behaviour in Eastern Europe was even dumber: export raw materials to the colonies and import finished. ROTFLMAO!) What I found audacious in Sisci's article was the next part: "The same could now be accomplished by bringing China and India into an attempt to rein in Islamic fundamentalism." Nice trick if it can be done....

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (16059)	1/11/2002 1:53:53 PM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, you are a smart guy and sometimes even entertaining, but in this case you are splitting rhetorical hairs for what reason I cannot fathom other than for the sake of pure argument. Communism has been utterly debunked as a political, social or economic system of any virtue and communism did not "win" in N. Korea and Vietnam unless you find something about those governments or social conditions worthy of emulation. In terms of its expansionist agenda, the USSR was defeated and it was not something the US stood by and watched disinterestedly or that you can delude yourself into thinking the US had no effect upon. If you think otherwise, then you are much fruther down under than I would have ever thought.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (16059)	1/11/2002 5:42:30 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Maurice Winn; Re: "Actually, the USSR and China and communism won in Vietnam and North Korea." You're being silly here. The cold war was not about the 3rd world, it was just fought there for convenience. I suppose you'd say that Britain lost WW1 because they failed to defeat Turkey. Or that Japan won WW2 because the Chinese never beat them. Examples of this sort of thing exist in every major war throughout history. For example, the Athenians were quite successful against the Spartans in certain subsections of the (very long) Peloponnesian war. But who cares. These long wars do have winners, and there is no doubt who won the Cold War. Nor is it necessary to march through the enemy's capital in order to signify a victory. Making the other guy give up territory or allies (as happened in spades to the USSR) is enough. Most of England and France's wars ended with that sort of result. Both countries had successes (like when France split the US off from England), but the overall result was obvious to all. Note that the US has not been forced to give Alaska back to the Russians, or to dissolve NATO. You can't say the same thing about Lithuania, for instance, or about the Warsaw Pact. Another way of looking at it is to note that the defeats you're talking about were marginal. (And they were fought in marginal territory as well.) The Vietnamese never marched through Washington or even burned the White House. The North Koreans ended up bottled up reasonably close to their prewar boundary with South Korea. It's only rarely possible to fight a war while winning every single battle. -- Carl

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (16059)	1/12/2002 12:48:07 AM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

though the image of the west provided some copycat incentive to think 'hey, why can't we be like that too?" Remember back in the sixties when all the right wingers claimed that the communists were corrupting western youth with sex, drugs, and rock n' roll? LOL, we corrupted the communist youth with sex, drugs, and rock n' roll!

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (16059)	1/12/2002 6:53:24 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Actually, the USSR and China and communism won in Vietnam and North Korea. They lost in Afghanistan. Actually, the USSR & China were having border clashes throughout the Vietnam War, and some have theorized that keeping pressure on Chinese expansionism to the south was part of a larger strategy that promoted discord between the two Communist giants. You seem also to have left out certain Central American, South American, Asian and African nations from your contested zones, plus Cuba, Egypt, etc. Most were 'pushes' or victories over Communism. In Vietnam, it was nationalist will that prevailed, not Soviet weaponry or strategy. The North absorbed enormous casualties and persisted because, well, where else could they go? We always had the option of retreating to a safe home while they had to win or lose and endure either at home. Korea would correctly be called a push. South Korea has a thriving economy while the North has been enduring starvation and hardship. I wonder which population is more grateful for the outside aid? And escalating the pace of the arms race was not a conscious effort that was previously thought of as a strategy to bring such a swift collapse to the USSR, yet in retrospect, it certainly helped. You probably just said that cause you're sore that we let NZ fall to the Commies... <GG>