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Originally Posted by Raider  |
That's Chris Rock's big thing to talk about, Race. It gets old after awhile.
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Originally Posted by jasdon11 And could you please explain just what Ronald Reagan did towards the fall of the Soviet Union? There are a lot of Russians who might think they did more.... |
This is from Wikipedia:
Cold War
See also: Cold War and Cold War (1979-1985)
Reagan escalated the Cold War, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente which began in 1979 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.[156] Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the United States Military[88] and implemented new policies towards the Soviet Union: reviving the B-1 bomber program that had been canceled by the Carter administration, and producing the MX "Peacekeeper" missile.[157] In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing II missile in West Germany.[158]
Reagan, the first American president ever to address the British Parliament, predicts Marxism-Leninism will be left on the ash-heap of history.
Reagan, the first American president ever to address the British Parliament, predicts Marxism-Leninism will be left on the ash-heap of history.[159]
One of Reagan's more controversial proposals was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a defense project[160] that would have used ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.[161] Reagan believed that this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible,[160][162] but disbelief that the technology could ever work led opponents to dub SDI "Star Wars" and argue that the technological objective was unattainable.[160] The Soviets became concerned about the possible effects SDI would have,[163] and leader Yuri Andropov said it would put "the entire world in jeopardy".[164] For those reasons, David Gergen, former aide to President Reagan, believes that in retrospect, SDI hastened the end of the Cold War.[142]
Reagan, as well as Britain's prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms.[165] In a famous address on June 8, 1982 to the British Parliament, Reagan called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire" that would be consigned to the "ash heap of history". On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse, stating, "communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written."[42] After Soviet fighters downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere."[166] The Reagan administration responded to the incident by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets, hurting them financially.[166]
Reagan's foreign policies were criticized variously as aggressive, imperialistic, and known to some as "warmongering."[163] These events occurred before a reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, rose to power in the Soviet Union in 1985. To confront the USSR's serious economic problems, Gorbachev implemented new policies for openness and reform: glasnost and perestroika.
Reagan displayed humor throughout his presidency,[167] including one notable joke regarding the Cold War. As a sound check prior to his weekly radio address in August 1984, Reagan made the following gaffe as a way to test the microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."[168]
End of the Cold War
See also: Cold War (1985-1991)
By the early 1980s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and army surpassing that of the United States. Previously, the U.S. had relied on the qualitative superiority of its weapons to essentially frighten the Soviets, but the gap had been narrowed.[169] After President Reagan's military buildup, the Soviet Union did not further dramatically build up its military;[170] the enormous military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the Soviet economy.[171] At the same time, the Reagan Administration persuaded Saudi Arabia to increase oil production,[172] which resulted in a three times drop of oil prices in 1985; oil was the main source of Soviet export revenues.[171] These factors gradually brought the Soviet economy to a stagnant state during Gorbachev's tenure.[171]
Ronald Reagan recognized the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership with Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet Leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. Gorbachev agreed to meet Reagan in four summit conferences around the world: the first in Geneva, Switzerland, the second in Reykjavík, Iceland, the third held in Washington, D.C., along with the fourth summit in Moscow, Russia.[173] Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of Communism.[174]
Speaking at the Berlin Wall, on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further:
“ General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ”
Prior to Gorbachev visiting Washington, D.C. for the third summit in 1987, the Soviet Leader announced his intention to pursue significant arms agreements.[175] The timing of the announcement led Western diplomats to state that Gorbachev was offering major concessions to the United States on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe;[175] however, Gorbachev denied ever doing so. He and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at the White House (they finalized it a year later), which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.[176]
When Reagan visited Moscow for the fourth summit in 1988, he was viewed as a celebrity by Russians. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. "No," he replied, "I was talking about another time, another era."[177] At Gorbachev’s request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at the Moscow State University.[178]
In his autobiography An American Life, Reagan expressed his optimism about the new direction that they charted, his warm feelings for Gorbachev, and his concern for Gorbachev's safety because he pushed reforms so hard: "I was concerned for his safety," Reagan wrote. "I've still worried about him. How hard and fast can he push reforms without risking his life?"[179] The Berlin Wall was torn down starting in 1989 and two years later the Soviet Union collapsed.
I hope this answers your question.
If you want to use LBJ instead, OK, he was just as incompetent as Kennedy and both were Democrats.... same result.
