TimmyBoy
Banned
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2005
- Messages
- 1,466
- Reaction score
- 0
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
XShipRider said:Accuracy and reliability were the keywords during the Cold War. The
Soviets mistakenly thought their missiles could be taken out by a first
strike. In return they wanted to increase the accuracy and reliability
of their doomsday weapons. This meant $pending hard money they
didn't possess and could not generate with a closed market. Their only
true cash business was in the arms business and modestly in the shipping
business (largest fleet in the world at one time).
True both sides could have easily depopulated the world. But the US had
one feather the Russians couldn't claim... that is, we showed the world we
were dumb enough to drop a nuclear weapon on a civilian population.
Proof in the pudding we were not afraid to drop these heinous WMDs.
Russia, on the other hand, was scared stiff during Reagan's build up of
the 600-ship Navy, the development of the space-based missile defense
system (coined Star Wars by the media), massive influx of cash
to all things military and a huge standing army.
Read The Mitrokhin Archive by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin to
get some insight as to the wariness of the Politburo and the KGB during
the Cold War. It is quite telling how the US thought the Soviets were
so far ahead in so many areas of intelligence and technology when in
actuality they were drowning in red [sic] tape. What they couldn't
steal from the West they had to expend bank-loads of cash, cash they
didn't readily have, to try and keep up. They also thought Reagan was
unstable enough to launch a first strike.
There is also the very telling Cuban Missile Crisis scenario. It too shows
their lack of fortitude with relation to launching nuclear missiles (not that
that's a bad thing!).
I'll give the Russians this much ~ they were smart enough NOT to launch
any nuclear weapons.
Sorry, Reagan gets the credit but only because he spent us into multiple
trillions of very long term debt.
I'm sure there are those who will want to debate the necessity
of dropping nukes on Japan to end WWII. It doesn't matter now, it's
done.
Yuri Andropov thought the US was planning to launch a nuclear war when Reagan came to power. Andropov had a very scewed and paranoid frame of mind, as well as alot of the Politburo. Reagan was not planning a nuclear war at all, he was just taking a harder line with the Soviets since they were exploiting the fact that the US retreated from involvement in world affairs after Vietnam. Not to mention, when the US was building down, the Soviets only continued to build up. So, I personally have always been a Reagan supporter and he is one of my favorite presidents. The Soviets biggest fear in the 1970s was that the US would unleash it's full economic might into the military sphere and this started to come true under the Reagan Adminstration. SDI symbolized all the Soviet fears and ultimately, given enough time, I believe the SDI program would have been successful.