I do not doubt for a second that some people said that the Soviet Union would collapse. But that was hardly the prevailing view in the 1980s among conservatives and liberals alike. Many more conservatives were taken with the idea that democracies could not compete against totalitarian regimes because they were weak in crucial respects. And the defense build-up was not sold as a way to bankrupt with the Soviet Union, but as a way to keep up with their military.

Thus, Ronald Reagan justified the necessity to rearm by stressing the inferiority of the United States' armed forces, when compared to the Soviet Union's: “in virtually every measure of military power the Soviet Union enjoys a decided advantage.”*

I guess the lesson we learn from this is to be careful to predict all sorts of things -- in the future, your fans will tout the correct predictions and ignore the other stuff.

(Incidentally, if the Soviet Union couldn't keep up with us with relatively modest annual increases in our defense spending, why do we think it would have been hanging around for ever if we'd spent just a little less money?)

* Alexander Dallin and Gail Lapidus, “Reagan and the Russians: American Policy Toward the Soviet Union” in Kenneth A. Oye, Roberta J. Lieber and Donald Rothchild, eds., Eagle Resurgent? (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1987), p. 203.

I read it. Pretty avidly, too.

Uday was only days away from deposing Saddam. Days. What a waste, eh?

Exactly, deny deny deny. The truth is out there and it ain't coming from the pseudo-intellectual intelligentsia thugs that you are reading. No one cares what these leftist goons or even the so called "conservatives" you allude to were saying. Reagan, Weinberger, Shultz and the rest of the patriots in that administration knew the score and took the greatest calculated risk in 20th century history. As leaders. And won. In spades.

You want the cite? Read Stockton, read Gorbachev and read Reagan. And put down that ivory tower crap.

You're a PENGUIN for chrissakes.

megaloman's post right above mine has the right idea with the para breaks.

Central America
 

It is a matter of public record that the d'Aubuisson regime and contras were responsible for horrific things. Had we not been supporting them, there would be ample ground to call them terrorists -- obviously, the term is malleable, but when they're on your side, they're freedom fighters, and when they're on the other side, they're terrorists.

I don't really want to argue about Central America policy in the 1980s. Things like Negroponte's support for death squads and the murder of nuns are only of historical interest now, right? (My point about democracy stands -- arguing that these atrocities were all for the best since the end of opposing communism justifies the means is, to say the least, somewhat inconsistent with the lip service we're all paying now to democracy.)

My original point was that club's suggestion that Democrats were somehow oblivious to the threat posed by the Soviet Union during the 1980s was bizarre. As you and he have demonstrated, there were and are tactical disagreements about how to deal with the threat. But that's a different order of disagreement.

Is that happenstance or evil? Evil, right? It must be pleasant to live in such a simple world.

Central America
 

Club said that? Must have missed it.

Wolfie
 

I'm sure you haven't perused a travel brochure to Vietnam lately, but I understand the people there are doing much better. And despite decades of US-led boycotts, Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the good ol' US of A.

As for the authoritarian regimes, I think you left off Ethiopia under Amin, Zimbabwe under Mugabe, Iraq under Hussein, Burma today, etc.

I thought the party line is that deficit spending isn't risky. Call Grover Norquist and get that one straightened out, would you?

Wolfie
 

We're still waiting for Singapore to turn into a democracy. So let's just say there are still a few bugs in the program.

Central America
 

Perhaps not oblivious to the threat but oblivious or wilfully ignorant (or fifth columnists unwilling to admit complicity) to the solution.

A world where good intention combined with well-aimed action results in a net good? Yeah, I'll go with "pleasant." Beats the heck out of self-hate. I think you always mistake "straightforward" for "simple". There's no merit in cloaking fear and pessimism in contrived moral quandry. The danger is that people begin to recognize that there's no real moral quandry, just partisanship dressed as moral argument.

Relatively speaking. What was the percentage of the deficit to GDP at the start of the Reagan revolution and at the end?

What position did Grover Norquist have in the Reagan Administration? He ain't the boss of no one!

Central America
 

We've already established that Reagan -- brilliantly -- foresaw that a defense build-up would cause the Soviet Union to collapse. So why was it necessary to support death squads and nun killers in Central America?