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Two totally unrelated events
Two years later, it was gone.
Two totally unrelated events
I never understood how Reagan had anything to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall or Soviet Union. Can someone enlighten me?
I will LMAO when some evil dictator makes a speech against America that is heard around the world, then when our system crumbles on its own because we're run by idiots, the dictator will get all the credit.
Start with this and do some reading...you might learn something.
Ron and Mikhail's Excellent Adventure
I believe it was Reagan's resolve, defense spending, and rhetoric [such as was on display in Berlin] that won the Cold War; as the Slate article states, there is another school of thought.How Reagan won the Cold War.
So, did Ronald Reagan bring on the end of the Cold War? Well, yes. Recently declassified do ents leave no doubt about the matter. But how did he accomplish it? Through hostile rhetoric and a massive arms buildup, which the Soviets knew they couldn't match, as Reagan's conservative champions contend? Or through a second-term conversion to detente and disarmament, as some liberal historians, including Slate's David Greenberg, argue?
...
at some point, some Kremlin leader would have had to mount a major reassessment of the situation. The Soviet system was dysfunctional; its empire was collapsing; the cupboard was bare. And Reagan's surging military budgets, without question, brought this internal crisis to a head.
Here was Gorbachev speaking at a session of the Politburo in October 1986, days before he traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland to offer Reagan a groundbreaking disarmament plan, including a 50 percent reduction in nuclear arsenals. If he didn't propose these cuts, Gorbachev told his colleagues:
Regardless, there seems to be agreement that Reagan was instrumental in winning the Cold War.
There, consider yourself enlightened.
So the rukkies lost because they realized it was stupid to be spending 1/2 their yearly GDP on military spending when there were so many other important needs in Russia....
Yippie!
Your point?
Reagan tried to sell arms to the Iranians
...and funded a South American terror group, the contras...During the Reagan administration, senior U.S. figures, including President Ronald Reagan, agreed to facilitate the sale of arms to Iran, the subject of an arms embargo.[2] At least some U.S. officials also hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of hostages and allow U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan contras.
WikiOliver North, one of the central figures in the affair, wrote in a book that "Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both." Mr. North also writes: "I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically."[9] North's account is difficult to verify because of the secrecy that still surrounds the affair.
What if we had done that instead?
What, lost? We didn't. And, never did our defense spending approach 50% of GDP.
how do you know? So much military spending is off the books...
..what if we'd used 20% of past military spending to fund a new replenish-able, green energy source instead?
Between '80 and '88, it hovered between 5 and 6 percent of GDP; You'd be hard pressed to hide 44-45% of the GDP in a military black budget.
Then we'd be throwing good money down a bottomless money pit; that's "what if."..what if we'd used 20% of past military spending to fund a new replenish-able, green energy source instead?
What if frogs had wings, Dan?
Look start an energy thread, this was a thread to commemorate Reagan's speech in Berlin.
Yeah, the Sandanitas were paragons of liberty and human rights.
Whether or not the Boland amendment was cons utional was never decided and President Reagan peacefully retired from office in 1989 as one of the most popular Presidents in history.
Yeah, Reagan was a Hollywood actor.
Those skills proved very useful as a television era President.
sad time in american politics.
also, here's a question
did we ever roll back all of this increased Reagan military spending after the cold war was over?
or did we just keep it, pissing away all this money during peace times?
I'd say we've maintained a top notch military over the years. Took a bit of hit during the Clinton years but, not too bad.
so we need to cut back again. If ever the need arises, we can go back to spending.
but we should seriously save money now, no need on this huge army anymore.
this is the problem with the MIComplex. Once they get the funding, it's hard to take it away. Someone will always scream "WE R GOIN TO BE WEAKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHH WE WILL B INVADED AND HAVE NO WAY TO DEFEND OURSELFS!!!!!!"
Have you looked at all the ing en lement spending? You could take defense spending to zero and still be in the red fiscally.
The Cons ution I read says the federal government has an obligation to provide for the common defense. Nowhere does it say to take money from me so others can buy groceries and still afford their flat screen televisions and spinners.
Only people indoctrinated by our school systems believe as you do.
Energy is so big, it cannot be subsidized. We would run out of tax payer.
Ooops...
Haven't we already run out of tax payers to fund pet projects?
Thanks a bunch! I always thought it was a combination of the Afghan war, unsustainable economic plans catching up with them, and a lack of the old guard keeping the flame lit.
It's pretty hilarious that the Russian's got duped by an actor into a spending race when they probably didn't even need to. How many bombs does it take to up America? What kind of technology are you lacking to deliver the pay load? Love it when the bad guys are too dumb to realize we lured them into a trap. WOOOT!
And now Obama and the democrats are taking us down the same road of unsustainable spending the broke up the Soviet union.Thanks a bunch! I always thought it was a combination of the Afghan war, unsustainable economic plans catching up with them, and a lack of the old guard keeping the flame lit.
It's pretty hilarious that the Russian's got duped by an actor into a spending race when they probably didn't even need to. How many bombs does it take to up America? What kind of technology are you lacking to deliver the pay load? Love it when the bad guys are too dumb to realize we lured them into a trap. WOOOT!
Really? Cuz I thought the Bush era stuff is what's been catching up to us since last year. Anything that Obama is doing wrong won't show up for about 4 years, right? Destruction takes time, and we've got time to save money for our households as a result.
Don't get me wrong, the Obama administration is doing some dumb , but it's not getting us killed. It's just making the rich people poor, which oddly enough makes the poor people poorer. Oh, who the am I kidding? These stupid wars are getting people killed and profiting everyone except us. We're gonna crumble eventually, maybe we should just age gracefully like Europe instead of trying to give ourselves face-lifts for the next few decades and ending up like Joan Rivers.
Edit: Europe ain't looking so hot either. Maybe we should just move to the moon? Or China?
Obama is contributing to a problem that Republicans are the worst culprits of.
Tell me how much more national debt W Bush ac ulated from when he was in office?
MTV broke the Iron Curtain just before it fell to pieces.
Yoni thinks Communism was an viable and strong system of government in the Soviet Union for seventy years and only massive deficit spending by the US could bring it down.
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