Quote:
Originally Posted by HOZ
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.
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The Soviet Union under Breshnev saw years of economic stagnation which led to its GNP dropping by 2/3rds from the early 60's to the late 70's, it was a spent force by the time Reagan came to power, granted it was usefull for the US military industrial complex and its supporters to use the USSR as a bogeyman, as they do with Al Quada, but by '75 other than the unlikely outbreak of nuclear war the USSR wasn't going to win anything, in fact they were so broke they approached the west to start disarmament talks in the 70's in order to reduce their outlay on a military they couldn't afford.
I'm not sure how dealing with the final days of a spent force can be compared to trying to negotiate with China, as powerfull as the USSR and an economic powerhouse that owns most of the US's foriegn debt.