From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: The collapse of communism and the role of the U.S.
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:52:34 GMT

In <1992Dec13.052751.17498@Princeton.EDU> pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson) writes:

>In article <1992Dec10.144857.22957@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>>The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under
>>>Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically silly.
>>>The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence
>>>decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in
>>>another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish.
>>>No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments
>>>of any other one.
>>
>>Proof by assertion?  He's wrong, by the way.  Hell, just look at the
>>facts.  Nations affect and influence other nations every day.  For
>>what he says here to be literally true, every nation on earth would
>>have to exist in a bubble, with no impacts on any policies caused by
>>actions or reactions of other nations.  Now THAT is a position that is
>>silly on its face.
>>
>I think Fred missed the word 'decisively'; the US did not have a
>decisive influence on the political upheaval in the Soviet Union.

Well, no, Fred didn't miss the word 'decisively'.  Fred simply
disagrees with the position that is espoused.  Perhaps the problem is
that we're using two different definitions for just how big an
influence has to be for it to be 'decisive'.  Would the Soviet system
probably have changed some day no matter what we did?  Perhaps.  One
could even say probably.  Would it have happened in my lifetime, if we
had simply 'made nice' with the Soviets instead of opposing them at
practically every turn and maintaining sufficient strength to make it
clear to them that they couldn't 'win' by conquest?  I don't believe
it would have.  So, is moving the date of something  by 50 years a
'decisive' influence?

>[stuff edited]
>>
>>>The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put
>>>an end to this hope.  The episode humiliated Khrushchev and discredited
>>>his relatively moderate policies.  It forced him to fall back, for the
>>>defense of his own political position, on a more strongly belligerent
>>>anti-American tome of public utterance.
>>
>>Gee, that sure seems somewhat at odds with history as I find it: the
>>cutting off of Berlin (by Krushchev) in 1958, for example.  This
>>sounds like the same sort of wishful thinking that ALWAYS goes on.

>Lets see, the Berlin airlift was in 1948-49.  The wall went up in 1961.
>What happened in 1958?  Nothing of any great consequence as far as I can
>tell.  On the other hand there was Hungary in 1956.  Supposedly
>Khrushchev had to put down the 'revolution' since they were going to leave
>the Warsaw pact (and Khrushchev would have been removed from power if
>that happened).

Perhaps you should have looked more closely, then.  In 1958 Kruschev
presented the Allied Powers with the Berlin Ultimatume, which
cancelled the 4-Power Statute and called for the withdrawal of all
troops from Berlin winthin 6 months and the establishment of the Free
City of West Berlin (as a separate state); the alternative offered was
essentially another Berlin Blockade, with the surrender of routes from
Berlin into the DDR to East German (Soviet) control.  When it was made
clear that the Allied Powers would stand up to any attempts to start
another such Blockade and would require that the Soviets and the DDR
accept prior agreements rather than this new "Three State" system that
was being proposed, the Soviets relented.

There were also some events in the MIddle East that you might find
interesting, if you are operating on the theory that Krushchev was a
nice little man who wanted to be our buddy.

>>
>[more edited out]
>>
>>>What did the greatest damage was not our military preparations
>>>themselves, some of which (not all) were prudent and justifiable.  It
>>>was rather the unnecessarily belligerent and threatening tone in which
>>>many of them were publicly carried forward.  For this, both Democrats
>>>and Republicans have a share of the blame.
>>>Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war.  It was
>>>a long and costly political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and
>>>exaggerated estimates of the intentions and strength of the other party.
>>>It greatly overstrained the economic resources of both countries,
>>>leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy financial,
>>>social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither
>>>had anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
>>
>>Another misstatement.  Just what is the 'cost' supposed to have been
>>to us that was so disastrous?  

>The size of the defense budget, Vietnam, ...

Given his espousement of the policy of isolation, I would think that
he would have been all in favor of Vietnam; I think this is
particularly true when you consider just when he was active in
decision making and whose policy American intervention in Vietnam was.
Note also that he states in the original essay that much of the
military spending was for systems that were necessary to our security. 

>>It is those "heavy financial, social,
>>and political problems" that pushed the Soviet tightrope walker off
>>the wire.
>>
>>>The fact that in Russia's case these changes were long desired on
>>>principle by most of us does not alter the fact that they came -- far
>>>too precipitately -- on a population little prepared for them, thus
>>>creating new problems of the greatest seriousness for Russia, its
>>>neighbors and the rest of us, problems to which, as yet, none of us have
>>>found effective answers.
>>
>>We would all be better off if the change had been more gradual and the
>>Soviet Union still held sway over Eastern Europe?  I suspect a lot of
>>Eastern Europeans would disagree with you on that one.
>>
>We would all be better off if the gradual changes had started in the
>1960's.  You seem to be missing the gist of the argument which is that
>the Soviet Union would have come apart much sooner if not for the threat
>of the US.  We didn't have to be their freinds, just basically ignore
>them.

No, you seem to be missing the gist of my opinion, which is that what
we would have gotten would NOT have been a Soviet collapse, and
certainly not this early.  What we would have got is a somewhat more
benign (but only somewhat) Soviet Empire which would have been much
more robust than what we've seen and which would be hurting us
severely in international affairs (since most third-party countries
will throw their support with where the strength is.   See any good
book on geo-politics under 'Finlandization'.

>As for the tightrope analogy, I think it is a good one.  The point
>I think Kennan is trying to make is that US policies didn't just make it
>tougher to stay on the tightrope they also increased the distance to the
>ground thereby icreasing the incentive to stay on the tightrope.  If the
>we had adopted policies such that the tightrope was only a foot off the
>ground the Soviets may very well have said "What the heck are we doing
>on this tightrope anyway?".

That is no doubt the point he is trying to make.  However, the point I
am making is that he is mistaken if he thinks that by lowering the
tightrope and making it broader so that it's easier for them to walk
that we would achieve the removal of the Soviet threat.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.conspiracy