Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
The Soviet Union wasn't breathing down Reagans neck, in fact the very existence of the Soviets meant the world was a far more predictable stable place, each power had its sphere of influence, neither wanted any more than a proxy war in some remote crap hole, the soviets weren't flying planes into buildings or likely to start a nuclear war in order to martyr themselves into heaven.
The world is a far worse place now than it was in the late seventies or early eighties from a US point of view, all the USSR had was a large army and a crumbling economy, Obama has had to deal with a second superpower, China, that owns the US's arse economically and has a large army.
Upon taking power Reagan had no US troops involved in any conflicts, a reletively stable Middle East for the first time in 20 years, and a USSR that was tied up in Afghanistan and relatively eager to agree to nuclear disarmament.
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Upon taking power Reagan faced this....
1. In 1980 the Soviet Union was winning. The MOST evil, most oppressive, most omnipotent force ever conceived was WINNING. They invaded Afghanistan
because they could. Like who would stop them? They had a death grip on Central America and South America. They were winning in Asia (NK was doing better than SK!!!) they were winning in Europe. They held their triumphant Olympic games and the only thing WE (west) could do is boycott it. Honestly, dude....people were waiting for the day they would try to invade North America!!!!! BTW: the Soviets invented today's terrorism.
So no....it was not predictable unless you like bad news.
2. ME being worse now? Umm...No. The Iran- Iraq war broke out and it was the worst war since WWII involving casualties and it was the first war since WWI that openly used chemical weapons. So the ME was not stable at all. Reagan had to deal with all sort of failures in the ME in his administration.