Actually JP yopu are wrong here. I know Reagan conservatives like to think it was all Reagans doing that helped end the USSR, but in fact it was every President from Truman through Reagan, and some European leaders, that accomplished that goal. The fact that it happened without any real bloodshed had nothing to do with any western leader, that was strictly attributed to Gorbechev.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Actually, the most sophisticated analysis suggests that nothing any US president did contributed in any way at all.

USA could have re-elected Carter in 1980 and the USSR was still going to be coming down in 1989 no matter what.

According to Soviet documents (now available to Western historians) the Soviets identified several key problems in the very eary 1970's that were likely to cause the downfall of the USSR - based entirely on internal domestic reasons. That study from the early 1970's turned out to be prescient. Like all politicians, the Soviet leadership never had the balls or the brains to do what they needed to do to make their system work - they just kept coasting and hoping things would eventually work out. They didn't. The USSR collapsed for 100% domestic Soviet reasons - entirely independent of any action by any US President.

It might take a few years for this conventional view of contemporary historians to penetrate the US market though (given the political ideology & propaganda that is continually invested in the contrary position).

I disagree. There were several factors that precipitated the fall of the Soviet Union. Two of those factors were linked to Reagan.
1. The Arms race that the USSR couldn't afford
2. The selling of stinger missiles to the Mujahadeem in Afghanistan.

The latter may have even been more significant than the former since it changed the balance of power in Afghanistan. Prior to the stingers, Russian convoys could be protecteed against the Mujahadeem's ambushes by deploying its Hind helicopter gunships to escort the convoys through the steep muntainous passes common in Afghanistan. Once the stingers were introduced, Russia had to abandon the Hind escorts and Russian convoys often became targets in a mountain pass shooting gallery. The heavy loss of lives and material didn't go unnoticed back in Russia. The government had the population believing that the Russian soldiers were in Afghanistan providing humanitarian aid by building schools, infrastructure, etc.,
When more and more bodies of soldiers began showing up at home, the people became suspicious. When Russia finally decided it could no longer afford to continue the war in Iraq, the returning soldiers told their families the truth and the Soviet Empire developed a fatal crack. The people realized that they had been lied to and weren't happy campers anymore.

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843rd Bomb Wing - Strategic Air Command
"Peace is our Profession"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.
" - James Wilson, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

That is largely correct, IMHO. Reagan's 'turning up the pressures' helped add to the conditions that led the Soviet Union to seek reforms, but this merely was one aspect that hastened its guaranteed eventual demise the way it was functioning. The Westernised societies that were capitalist merely had to keep doing what they were doing whilst the Soviets had to keep doing what they were doing, and the cards were dealt that the Soviets would lose the hand.

Simply put, the communist states could neither compete economically on a system-to-system level nor could they keep their people happy about their controlled and repressed status once they knew how things were the opposite in the Western societies. The cultural and economic hangover of just how behind and dysfunctional the Soviet system was compared to the West is still felt in how socially and economically behind the former Soviet Union and its satellite states in the former Eastern Bloc still are this many years later.

I recall as a child the same situation at Shannon Airport in Ireland where the Cubans were hopping off the planes seeking asylum and that Soviet Aeroflot pilots and other airline staff were desparately going around the airport trying to get basics like blue jeans and other common Western goods to take home, sometime being required to sneak and/or bribe them back home.

It was no secret looking at the Cuban asylum jumpers and the desperate Soviets seeking basic western goods to take home that the communist systems were not working and that the people were extremely unhappy with the systems and wanted what the West had instead. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, Aeroflot kept large hangers at Shannon to fix clearly dilapidated planes. They were so inferior in quality that they had to stop at Gander in Newfoundland just to refuel once they left Shannon. I also understand that the Soviets kept their crash statistics under tight raps.

People do not flee better places and avoid better things--they seek them.

The Soviet Union was getting so far behind, it felt it finally had to open up its society and markets in order to grow competitively or die. So, Gorbachev pushed to relax the tight grips the Soviets had on its people and spheres of control. But in doing so, the 'social paradise' propaganda ad nauseam and misinformation about the 'outside world' presented to the people melted away. They could see the multitudes of disfunctions in their society compared to the West, and the people pushed to get what the West had and especially grew to resent the control, the neglect, the abuse, and the fraud of their own. Moreover, it highlighted nationalism amongst its many peoples, and in turn the various nationalities sought their own independence. Eventually, the people kicked off the Soviet Union as a result.

This is the major reason that Kim Jong Il keeps his country as 'the Hermit Kingdom' cut off from outside influences and pounds them relentlessly with fictitious propaganda about North Korea and the rest of the world. Once 'the cat gets out of the bag' about how cruelly false his charades are, the whole thing would start to unravel for him. He saw what happened when the Soviets opened up, and doesn't want the same demise to happen to him. He will run it into the ground to the end with brutal control (as he already has with famines, gulags, total state control of information, etc) to keep his place.

Actually my point was that the pressure on the USSR began under Truman. Each and every President after Truman helped fuel that pressure on their economy. The internal structural failures certainly made it so they couldn't keep up in both concumer and military areas, and in the end they couldn't even keep up when concentrating on just one of them. Collectivization had a lot to do with it, why work hard when you have no ownership, and that kind of attitude permiated the Soviet economy.

Make no mistake however the fact that the US specifically and the west in general was able to provide consumer goods and maintain a competent modern military did have a lot to do with the eventual failure of the USSR.

The only question was would that failure be peaceful or violent, and that was completely out of the hands of the west. The fact that it was essentially peaceful, with a few bumps but nothing like what it could have been, is largely due to Gorbechev.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

You don't know your own history, JP. How many times did the Soviet Union invade the US? How many times did the US invade the Soviet Union?

How many times did the Soviet Union use nuclear weapons against an enemy? How many times did the USA use nuclear weapons against an enemy?

I'm not an apologist for anyone, but I do try to look beneath the 'official story'. Not everyone has the same opinion as you, that's why we are both here on this forum.

As for burying the Soviet Union, they buried themselves.

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Lucky is he (sic) who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil

I hadn't read the newer posts before replying to JP. It is interesting to see that others have the same general opinion as myself about the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, it doesn't appear that the people of the former Soviet Union are better off than they were before the collapse.

Certainly there are now millionaires and billionaires, but they have become that way through shady deals and buying up former government run entities at bargain basement prices. In fact, quite a few scandals are associated with US banks. But that's another story.

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Lucky is he (sic) who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil

Did you completely miss the lesson on the "Cold War"? Why do you think it was called "The Cold War"? The reason was that it wasn't fought directly between the US and USSR, it was fought through proxy states throughout the world. Vietman, East/West Germany, Afghanistan, Cuba, etc., etc.,
And we provided the shovel.

__________________
843rd Bomb Wing - Strategic Air Command
"Peace is our Profession"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.
" - James Wilson, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

JP, the US invaded the USSR in 1919. One up to you!

You used nuclear weapons on Japan. One up to you!

USSR Nil USA 2

I know it's sophistry, but with those scores who is the aggressor?

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Lucky is he (sic) who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil

It wouldn't go that far. They are better off in the short and long term.

The system was an oppressive one and ran the union and its satellites into the ground economically. That situation would only have gotten worse with time as the First World moved on whilst it fell from a deep Second World into the Third World in many areas and aspects.

The problems being seen today are part of the recovery process. But, alot of the former Eastern Bloc nations are now part of the EU and it is gradually going to get the benefits of it.

Citizens of the new members are already working across the EU, and many have been able to work and/or emmigrate across the EU and to other nations to get a better life, and in turn, this sends and/or brings money back home, especially with those who will return with money, an education, business connections and training, etc. There are plenty of investment opportunities opening up too between those nations and the rest of the EU and other major investors like the US, Japan, etc. The same things are true with the former Soviet states like Russia and other states that have broken off.

But the entire structure was so oppressive, backward and rotted before its fall that it simply takes time to correct such a long setback whilst the West ran forward.

Some nations are also in conflict breaking off or attempting to do so. But, these things also needed to be sorted out eventually. The only way to keep it together like before was with repression. That's no good either. Again, people have to find their own way, and that is also true with national identity. Happiness is measured in more than just cash. Ireland, for example, was a member of the UK just like England, Scotland and Wales, all of whom held seats in Parliament. And the UK held a vast empire. Ireland could have stayed within the UK and been an integral part of the British Empire and likely made more prosperity within it than it wound up having in its earlier period of independence. But, the people wanted a free country to call their own for the Irish people. When it first got its independence, it was a small nation with a very rural economy. But today, it is an extremely prosperous place. And many Scots today seek to follow suit for Scottish independence, as well as some Welsh. The first breakaway republics of the Soviet Union were the Baltic states. They were independent before the Soviet Union annexed them, just as Britain had earlier done to Ireland. But they were proud peoples who wanted their independence back and they acted very bravely to get it restored. Other nations and ethnicities have followed suit since then.

Actually, it was 1918...... and it was in support of the Russian anti-Bolskeviks.
And it ended WWII. Not a bad outcome, IMO.
How does dropping an A-bomb on Japan threaten the USSR at the time? We ended the war against Japan that they had just entered. It prevented loss of Russian lives.
It's actually a ridiculous exercise in non-sequiters.
Why don't you include the countries that the USSR invaded and made into satellite states? That's an interesting list.

__________________
843rd Bomb Wing - Strategic Air Command
"Peace is our Profession"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.
" - James Wilson, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

JP, whatever the reason, you did invade. If it's any consolation to you, Australia was part of the invasion force as well.

Whether the dropping of the A-bomb ended the war is problematic and controversial. Many historians with access to de-classified documents are stating that dropping the bomb was unnecessary as Japan was on the point of surrender. All that was holding it up was how the Emperor would be treated. Further, once victory in Europe was assured, the troops stationed near Japan by the USSR would have been freed up to invade Japan. Therefore, Japan had no choice but to surrender as they would have been fighting on two fronts.

This may shock you, but to my mind the dropping of the bomb was less to do with Japan's surrender and more to do with an abject lesson to the USSR by Truman - 'we have the bomb, and we aren't afraid to use it!". There are always several reasons behind the actions of nation states. And don't forget, Truman did it against the advice of his military leaders.

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Lucky is he (sic) who has been able to understand the causes of things
Virgil

What's your question?

1. Cubans do not have problem of living Cuba they have problem of entering USA because of racist and discriminatory policy of USA government towards Latino American people. What is the purpose of another Berlin wall on American soil?
2. So in accordance with CIA and your brainwashed mind when Cubans live their country it must be because of prosecution??? And when others do the same then that is normal. You are saying that Cubans don’t have right to be economical migrants in other countries or if they do this then that’s abnormal behaviour? Is that what you are saying?
Anyway there is larger number of Americans who left USA and migrated in other countries then Cubans did.

[/quote]

the problem is that we have no discriminatory policy and have let 11 million illegals in via our southern border. And Miami is full of Cubans that have successfully made it into the US and are now wealthy, unlike those they left home.

__________________
843rd Bomb Wing - Strategic Air Command
"Peace is our Profession"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.
" - James Wilson, U. S. Supreme Court Justice and Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution