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

To: Neocon who wrote (148751)	10/22/2004 6:32:23 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Reagan does not get enough credit. But it is good to at least confirm that your pose as a conservative is a crock. Hardly. Just because I'm not a nimwit toady willing to repeat whatever is served does not make me less of a conservative. Sloganeering is not my thing. Economics, internal soviet politics, and timing of specific developments outside of Reagan's control all contributed to the Soviet Union's demise. - Economics (the Soviet Union was collapsing under its own weight economically), although I certainly agree that Reagan incorporated ideas (and continued prior administration policy) with a trade policy designed where possible to keep constant economic pressure on the Soviet Union. - internal soviet politics - the rise to power of Gorbachev - he was and is far more enlightened than any of his predecessors, - and timing -- in addition to having the right leader at the right time, the rise of communications and information technology and globalism put intense competitive and societal pressures on an already broken system and provided a real foot in the door to opening their society up. Pressure from within I view as critical. These factors - all either completely or largely out of Reagan's control - had as much to do with the demise of the Soviet Union as any "evil empire" talk. Some feel that hard line support for Strategic Defense Initiative and military one-upmanship was the factor - but I don't buy that. Keeping them on edge militarily was certainly a contributing factor. More importantly, and I give Reagan credit for this, was the shift from confrontation to engagement towards the end - his sense of timing was excellent there. Good conservatives need to do more than believe our own press, all the time. Try it.