Oil, not Reagan, ended Cold War

[Octafish]

Here's the real deal, a warning for the West:

Oil, not Reagan, ended Cold War

Since President Reagan's death, we have been reminded of his achievements, such as strengthening our armed forces and deregulating markets. Yet he had his failures, too, like the Iran-Contra affair. Still, it is important to give credit where credit is due. Many analysts look at President Reagan's record and say that he caused the end to the Cold War. However, the real cause of the fall of the Soviet Union was not military collapse but rather a domestic resource issue.

Specifically, the decline in the nation's oil production caused the Soviet economy to collapse. It was this collapse that created political discontent and an impetus for change that led to the end of the Cold War, not Reagan's tough defense posturing.

Many, though, especially friends in the defense industry where I myself worked in the Reagan era, credit the former president for the demise of the U.S.S.R., saying that he enlarged the U.S. military. The Soviets' supposed response was to build up their own with extra defense spending. This meant a loss of resources for the rest of their economy and greater debts to pay, which in turn caused the Soviet economy to collapse.

An additional blow was delivered when then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev tried to increase efficiency by freeing the economy in the face of Reagan's threat. That only made the Soviet's inefficiencies more acute and hurtled them into collapse more quickly.

CONTINUED...

http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7252~2239919,00.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Thanks for this interesting post!

I always wondered if Reagan really deserved credit for the Soviet collapse: since his grasp of reality often seemed so tenuous, I've had trouble imagining him as a great geopolitical strategist. I had assumed Soviet lies about Chernobyl fatally cost the Kremlin its political capital. But the hypothesis here may be much better!


As an irrevelevant aside, article probably belows in EAOA not LBN.

[hightime]

2. Not LBN, opinion page.

[mhr]

3. Domestic Peak Oil Collapsed The Soviet Union - Fascinating

Short Peak Oil Article Here:

http://www.dallasforkerry.com/mediascope/brainzone/

Also see this intro from National Geographic

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/index.html