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Post by m52nickerson on Mar 22, 2009 19:19:38 GMT -5
Reagan could have very well came into office and ended the war. If you don't like the term foresight, go with intelligence to continue, whatever. The point is he did continue.
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Post by BenderBRodriguez on Mar 22, 2009 19:26:11 GMT -5
I love some of the responses in that Y!A thread. They all say "if it weren't for Reagan, you'd all be speaking Russian" or my favorite: "He was ranked the greatest of all time," beating out Abe Lincoln and MLK. And then he proceeds to link to an idiotic BBC poll which ranked Oprah as the 9th greatest American.
The stupid, it burns.
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Post by ltfred on Mar 22, 2009 19:29:12 GMT -5
Reagan could have very well came into office and ended the war. If you don't like the term foresight, go with intelligence to continue, whatever. The point is he did continue. So Reagen gets a little credit. But if Afganistan is what really ended the Soviet Union, then Carter is the one most responsible, seeing as how he provoked Russia into starting it. |
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Post by mistermuncher on Mar 22, 2009 19:31:12 GMT -5
I'd be somewhat reluctant to credit SDI with very much of anything. Sure, it seemed like a bold and decisive move, but even the people running it were pretty well convinced it couldn't have taken out all the missiles (cf. David Parnas, Ashton Carter) involved in a full strike. It played well to a certain segment of the public, sure, but I doubt it influenced the Soviets to any degree.
Whilst Gorbachev argued strongly against it, it never seemed (to me anyway) he did so out of any strategic mindset, but more out of a realisation that if it ever did become effective, it would hopelessly skew the global balance of power.
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Post by ltfred on Mar 22, 2009 19:33:08 GMT -5
If SDI ever worked (unlikely), that would have been even worse, it being a serious threat to Mutually Assured Destruction, and therefore everyone.
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Post by mistermuncher on Mar 22, 2009 19:40:06 GMT -5
Precisely my point re: Gorby's motivation in trying to end it.
Also, if it was extant, it seems somewhat inevitable that it would lead the side holding it to be that little bit more trigger-happy, with obvious dire consequences for the opposition. And probably them as well.
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Post by ltfred on Mar 22, 2009 20:25:19 GMT -5
Precisely my point re: Gorby's motivation in trying to end it. Also, if it was extant, it seems somewhat inevitable that it would lead the side holding it to be that little bit more trigger-happy, with obvious dire consequences for the opposition. And probably them as well. And that was the point. It wasn't some accidental side-effect, that was the entire purpose of the program. |
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Post by mistermuncher on Mar 22, 2009 20:30:23 GMT -5
Shit, man, I'm not disagreeing with ye. The notion was to allow the US to wave their willy around as they liked whilst castrating the opposition. All I was saying was it didn't work, and probably still doesn't, and all it would have done, odds on, was speed up MAD through hubris. To my mind, Gorbachev's impassioned opposition had more to do with that than strategic aims.
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