Debate vs Hate?

[Richard]

Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview-- nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.

- Stephen Jay Gould (Dinosaur in a Haystack)

Richard's $.02

[greenberetTFS]

Faith by itself isn't the answer,it's important in "whom" you believe in,not what you believe in!..........

Big Teddy

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Well Reagan I do not view like a deity. He was a man and a politician and had his faults, but I do believe he played a critical role in bringing down the Soviet Union.

The same argument could be made of most presidents from Woodrow Wilson onwards.

Metaphorically speaking, just because a basketball player hits a game winning shot, it doesn't mean that his shot won the game.

[Richard]

Personally - I view Reagan's role in bringing down the former Soviet Union as being similar to that of an actor who gains recognition for being a cast member in a movie which plays well at the box office and receives an Oscar for Best Picture - he had his part.

Richard's $.02

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

Personally - I view Reagan's role in bringing down the former Soviet Union as being similar to that of an actor who gains recognition for being a cast member in a movie which plays well at the box office and receives an Oscar for Best Picture - he had his part.

Richard's $.02

I disagree with your post. It implies anyone who was President during that time period would have gotten the same results.

[JacobGL]

Originally Posted by Richard

IMO - a man full of either faith or hate is someone who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

Richard's $.02

Amen.

[akv]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Metaphorically speaking, just because a basketball player hits a game winning shot, it doesn't mean that his shot won the game.

Sigaba,

History classes I recall taught individuals matter less than circumstances or geography. This is pragmatic, but aren't there limits to pragmatism, especially if one considers the multiplying impact for better or worse of an exceptional leader? On the one hand, for example the terms of the Treaty of Versailles likely ensured further German aggression, even if Hitler had been killed in the trenches of WW1. Geography matters too, since the best leader of all time if in Iceland probably wouldn't have a huge world impact.

But then you consider, the strength of a Lincoln in holding the Union together in the bleak days before Gettysburg. Would English resolve during the Blitz been the same under Chamberlain instead of Churchill? Or, along the lines on an individual's impact on history Genghis Khan, a boy thrust into slavery who ended up conquering a vast empire.

I'm not sure how to weigh this equation, but I don't think one should underestimate leadership?

I just read this thread. I smacked my hand several times as I began a reply without reading further. So here I am at the end left with some random thoughts.

• It seems to me that sometimes the mark of a great leader is to recognize the right parade and to get out in front of it. If all Regan is ever credited with is getting in front of the right parade and making changes only at the margin, I will be quite satisfied.
  
• Much of the discussion in this thread seems to dance around the logical concept of "necessary vs. sufficient." I think the circumstances that Regan found were "necessary but not sufficient" to bring down the Soviet Union. He became the catalyst and therefore was necessary to bring the desired result. Was he the only catalyst extant? I leave that to those with superior gifts than mine.
  
• I continue to have very mixed feelings about Scheuer. I believe in his analysis of the problems of the past and recommendations for the future re. Ben Laden. I have just the exact opposite feelings regarding his position on Israel. Anecdotal only, but it seemed to me that during his early career as a commentator he frequently went on anti-Israel riffs. He still appears as a commentator, but now stays away from comments on Israel. I cannot judge if his virulent anti-Israel positions are based on anti-Semitism.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by akv

Entire post

In regards to Winston Churchill, I would remind you that the greatest advocate of the value of his leadership during the Second World War was Churchill himself. (And at this point, I'm breaking into a fit of coughing that sounds a lot like "John Dill / John Dill.")

There are many schools of thought as to what makes history happen. While the "great man" approach took a drubbing during the last quarter of the twentieth century, it does say something that some social historians are now writing biographies.

IMO, any historical event is going to be shaped by a "constellation of causal factors." Leaders will always be a part of that matrix but they may not always be pivotal. Sometimes, the leaders we think insignificant, or even detrimental to victory may be the ones who set the conditions for victory.

Here's an example of what I mean. Much is said about the Soviet-Afghan War and how contributed to the erosion of the USSR's power and prestige. Do we know all there is to know about the role the Carter administration played in baiting the Soviets to invade? What about the steps that Carter took to facilitate the ensuing insurgency <<LINK>> <<LINK2>>?

If the Soviet-Afghan War was the boulder that broke the back of the USSR, the leaders that may merit the most historical inquiry actually may not be politicians in Washington and the Kremlin but some of the QPs on this BB.

[Utah Bob]

Originally Posted by Pete

I disagree with your post. It implies anyone who was President during that time period would have gotten the same results.

I think that rather than that, Reagan, by quirk of fate or alignment of the stars, just happened to be the right guy in the right place at the right time. Some would have been worse. Some would have been better.
The Soviets were going down regardless of who was at the helm. A weaker man would have delayed their fall perhaps. A cleverer one ( and clever was one thing I never used i the same sentence with Reagan) might have hastened it. The end result, I believe, was inevitable.

Originally Posted by Sigaba

In regards to Winston Churchill,

My view of Churchill conforms more with that of Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Entire post

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

How do we know this for sure...? How do we know if not for certain actions taken by the United States, if it would not still be in existence today?

Broadsword2004--

IMO, a point that you're missing is that, in the absence of definitive archival evidence, the benefit of the doubt should not necessarily go to the United States or to President Reagan.

You are offering controversial interpretations of events with a degree of certainty and confidence that even senior historians who have spent their careers studying the Cold War do not posses.

Why is that?

[Richard]

I disagree with your post. It implies anyone who was President during that time period would have gotten the same results.

No it doesn't - it implies that the event as a whole was far larger and more complex than just the efforts of one person.

Richard

[Richard]

RRs PR machine was as good as Dugout Doug's.

FWIW - I was at the AmEmbassy-Bonn during that time period - and the situation was far more complex (and even whimsical) than you can imagine.

Richard

[Sigaba]

Broadsword2004--

Before you continue your reading on the Cold War or any other historical topic, I strongly urge you to spend some time with David Hackett Fisher's Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought. Or, at the very least, D.C. Watt, "Britain and the Historiography of the Yalta Conference and the Cold War," Diplomatic History, 13:1 (January 1989). While one may profit from reading Watt's entire essay, I recommend specifically pages 68-73.

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

From what I understood, they weren't so controversial (guess I should do more research). I believe Gorbachev in his memoir even said that the U.S. spent the Soviet Union out of existence, in terms of the arms race.

In his memoir, Gorbachev writes about SDI--a program often considered as the back-breaking straw. Gorbachev told Reagan during the 1985 Geneva summit:

I think you should know that we have already developed a response [to SDI]. It will be effective and far less expensive than your project, and be ready for use in less time.

In his recollection of this meeting, Gorbachev goes on to tell his readers.

Statesmen are not entitled to disclose everything they learned in office. Even today I cannot reveal certain facts to the reader. Still, I can assure you that we were not bluffing. Our studies had proved that the potential answer to SDI could meet the requirements I had mentioned.

IMO, this statement supports Gorbachev's position that ending the arms race with the U.S. was vital for global security and domestic politics.

This is to say that Gorbachev's desire to end an arms race that "gain[ed] momentum even after [the USSR achieved] military and strategic parity with the United States of America" under Brezhnev centered around his agenda, not President Reagan's.*

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Where Reagan was very smart I think was in that he recognized that the Soviet economy was a lot more fragile than many realized.

Here, I think you are giving too much credit to Ronald Reagan for understanding what had been the received wisdom in many components of western strategic and political culture for decades. As a convenient example, in the winter of 1980, an essay in the New Left Review, pointed out that:

It has become customary on both right and far left to stress the weaknesses of the Soviet economy. The French book market is well stocked with works such as Emmanuel Todd’s La Chute finale, picturing the USSR as a land where nothing works and everything disintegrates. Senator Jackson’s advisers tell him that it is in a state of crisis so acute that the United States can demand major political concessions in exchange for its grain and technology. A variety of neo-Marxist critics point to extremes of inefficiency and waste. Indeed a catalogue of blunders and distortions can be assembled without difficulty from the pages of the Soviet press. Shortages, corruption, confusion, seem endemic, while growth has slowed.

(IIRC, I have a nice example inconveniently buried in a box somewhere.)

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Of course then when the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone was shocked. Even experts on the Soviet Union were stunned at just how degraded and horrible the standard of living in it had been.

Reagan knew from the get-go that socialism did not work though, and that the Soviet economy thus had to be a lot weaker than everyone else thought, and that what one needed to do was push it in various ways, to break it.

This argument undermines your advocacy of President Reagan's leadership. If President Reagan knew about the weakness of the Soviet economy, was an arms race the best way to push them over the edge? What were the political and geostrategic risks of building a fleet second to none if one knew beforehand that it would never be needed? What does it say about America's intelligence agencies if, under Reagan, they committed such a grave oversight?

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

Reagan also recognized the problem of too much government with our own U.S. economy, and embarked on tax cuts and deregulation. This also was considered nuts, because by the Keynesian economic view at the time, tax cuts would create inflation by creating too much demand. And we already had double-digit inflation at the time, and this guy Reagan is saying to slash taxes, was he nuts!?!

President Reagan was not nuts. Nor was he original nor alone in holding this position. Again, I think you are acting as if the man developed his political philosophy in a vacuum. Such is simply not the case.

(A question for consideration. Was President Reagan really a fiscal conservative? Defense spending is still government spending. And naval expansion creates a ripple effect all its own.)

_________________________________________________
* Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (New York: Doubleday, 1995), pp. 407, 138.