From: pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson)
Subject: Re: The collapse of communism and the role of the U.S.
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 05:27:51 GMT

In article <1992Dec10.144857.22957@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>In <1992Dec7.233404.27033@Princeton.EDU> pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson) writes:
>
>>On the other hand, perhaps you also have missed something.  Here is an
>>opinion piece by George F. Kennan which appeared in the New York Times a
>>couple of months ago.  Its kind of long (for the net) but well worth reading.
>
>I hadn't read the piece, but I don't find it particularly convincing.
>In fact, there are several places where there seem to be serious
>logical flaws when we compare what is stated to reality.  Of course,
>it's only an opinion piece, so I guess that's only to be expected, but
>I sure wouldn't want to be in the position of basing my opinion on it. 
>
>>----------
>>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.

[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).
>
[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, ...

>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.

>>All these developments should be seen as part of the price we are paying
>>for the cold war.  As in most great international conflicts, it is a
>>price to be paid by both sides.  That the conflict should now be
>>formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also for sober
>>re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation.
>>It is not a fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great
>>triumph for anyone, and particularly not one for which any American
>>party could properly claim principal credit.
>
>Examining the policies of the national leadership of the two parties,
>I think he is wrong.  One thing of interest; which political party is
>this man affiliated with?  Just whose administrations did he serve
>under? 
>
I can only assume that this is a rhetorical question since no one should
be involved in this thread if they don't at least know who Mr. Kennan
is.  He was a career diplomat type when he was in public service.  He
started when Coolidge was president up until Eisenhower.  In 1953 he was
ambassador to the Soviet Union and was asked to leave by the Soviets
because of some comments he made about treatment of foreign diplomats.
To sum up, I don't believe he is particularly beholden to either party.

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?".

Paul.