Correspondent of the Day: Reagan Initiated End of Cold War
Reagan Initiated End of Cold War
Editor, Times-Dispatch: In his Op/Ed column, "On Bush I's 'Prudent' Management of Cold War Efforts," Robert Strong belittles former President Ronald Reagan's efforts to bring about an end to the Cold War and instead gives most of the credit to former President George H.W. Bush. "Reagan is the president conservatives love to remember," Strong writes, but Bush "was the president who actually managed the tumultuous events from 1989 to 1991 when revolutions were bringing the Cold War to a decisive, peaceful, and largely unexpected conclusion."
A recent book by James Mann, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan -- A History of the End of the Cold War, refutes this argument and gives credit to Reagan for clearly recognizing former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's desire to tend the long ideological and military confrontation with the West. Intuitively, Reagan "sensed that the Soviet economy was in desperate shape" and that the communist nation would be willing to "enter into arms-control deals without the series of conditions it had previously set." In Mann's view, Reagan believed that Gorbachev was "fundamentally different from his predecessors," a belief that drew charges from conservatives that Reagan was gullible and too optimistic.
One of those skeptics was Bush. According to Mann, within a week of Reagan's return to Washington from a summit meeting with Gorbachev, the president's "positive views of Gorbachev and of the Soviet Union were disputed by an unusual source: his own vice-president." Indeed, Mann says that Bush had "genuine disagreements with Reagan about Gorbachev and the Soviet Union."
There should be no dispute that Bush did manage successfully the post-Cold War events. However, he would not have had the chance if his great predecessor did not bring about an end to a half-century of conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Lee Rice.
Richmond.
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Ronald Reagan was fortunate the USSR crumbled on his watch. His enrichment of defense industry contractors upped the ante to the Soviets so he added pressure on the soviets. Yet world historians don’t give Reagan that much credit for the demise of the USSR’s irrational economy. Reagan slept walked through history and did not really understand the way the world works. He was a likeable and dramatic dunce for the most part. He didn’t even realize his people were selling missiles to Iran in order to the right wing Contras. History will see through the great communicator’s popularity and rate him accordingly.
Carter was defeated by the economy.
The economy was defeated by OPEC.
USSR was defeated by a rotten economy.
USSR economy was defeated by too much defense spending.
Reagan initiated the call to arms,
that outspent USSR.
I say the race is not over, although we won the first part. Too much Defense spending and OPEC may still crush the US economy. Those who call us the winners of the Cold War, may be correct, and Reagan has to take some credit, but we have still not won the
Oil War, in fact we are losing badly.
And defense spending is out of control.
Still no one wants to blame our bad economy on the $4 gas prices of 2007/8 or out of control defense spending.
Until we can recognize and AGREE:
1. That we are in an Oil War 2. That we spend too much on defense 3. That we can win if we act now 3. To delay, just prolongs the enevitable prolonged malaise of the US economy until the next world war against China, Russia, the Middle East, and India over Oil resources.
Well, in the interest of positing comparisons, it should be said that President Obama was elected in large part on the wave of sheer failures associated with the latter Bush Presidency, and it was that same record of incompetence that gave Democrats of any quality electoral boosts in the congress.
The election of President Reagan was possible thanks to a naive president in over his head, Jimmy Carter.
America was yearning for anyone after a few short years of the Carter disaster.
Americans are yearning even more for anyone to be president in 2013 after only a few short months of Obama.
The Cold War isn’t over. The NeoCons are still fighting it. And take a look at how our overseas military bases are geographically positioned.
The writer reminds me of an interesting parallel to Iran when he states the senior Bush’s distrust of Gorbachev:
At the turn of the millennium in Iran, Mohammad Khatami (A predecessor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) was perhaps analogous to Gorbachev in that he was a reform advocate seeking to change a repressive system in a mutually beneficial way to the international system. Where history diverges is that unlike the success of Ronald Reagan’s reasoned and supportive diplomacy towards Gorbachev and his representative change, the latter Bush (W) Administration resembled in philosophy the former President Bush (as said above), to the effect that a hardline and knee-jerk opposition to all Iranian leadership failed to see the opportunity in also extending something akin to stern, tacit support for the Iranian reformist (Who is, by the way, currently part of the Mousavi camp). Of course the effect had been to undermine the budding reformist movement and skew elections towards Ahmadinejad and his ilk, drawing a succession of diplomatic failures and unwelcome developments between US and Iranian relations.
A summary is that had Reagan not taken a softer approach to the Soviet Union seeking to cultivate the signs of internal reforms, it would not have been possible to achieve the peace that was made amidst a reactionary “cold” war set. The Iranian state is also involved with the US as part of a much smaller “cold” war, and to corner reformers against the repressive needs of national security negates the political space needed for those reforms. It has now been several years since the first opportunity for reform became apparent and only now, sans George W. Bush, the opporunity for peaceful reform is again apparent in Iran. We should seek to cultivate it this time.
Ronald Reagan was technically the first POSITIVE President in my life. I had Nixon, Ford, and Carter in my childhood, and remember how badly people thought of them.
When Reagan swept the re-election by a landslide, and I mean a REAL landslide. People knew he was the real deal. Plus? There was no animosity against his opponents. Tip O’Neil, and he would have dinner once a week, just to discuss things, and behave like Gentlemen.
Gentlemen. When it was more than a turn of a phrase. Reagan will always be more “Statesman” than “politician” to me.
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