Cold War necasary?

[Verbose]

and i know the liberals on these boards don't like it but Reagan's convoluted & far-fetched Star Wars project really, really threw the Soviets for a loop. of course, this project was pretty much science fiction. however, it scared the be-jesus out of the Reds in that they truly believed that the Yanks could pull it off.

Another important aspect of competition was the fact that the Soviets took a gander at personal desktop computers and networks, and bit like IBM they early on decided it was all a flash in the pan, nothing useful would come of it.

And with no private enterprise to take up govt. slack, by the late 80's (Gorbachev's Glasnost) you could catch interviews on TV with sad KBG "aparachniks" re. how the SU really, really needed to computerise.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

the US did indeed win the cold war.

Definitely no question about that.

i'd venture to say that the primary reason would be economics...

Primary reason, correct. Though the main underlying reason would have been the communist form of government. Allowing for the ule of only one political party is never a good system. Look at the United States, though there are two primary parties (i.e. Republican, like me, and Democrat), there are many, many, other parties (i.e. Green, Indepent, etc) Link to a site with some of the parties in the United States:
http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm

for example-
the US spent about 2-4% of her GNP on defense during the cold war while the commies spent in the area of 15% of her GNP on defense.

The socialist system is good in theory, and for controlling inflation and depression, but that's about it. They are extremely prone to shortages and surpluses due to inaccurate government indicators (these try to determine amount of each thing needed). And have these shortages and surpluses for a long enough period of time, and the people will get fed up and demand change. The Soviet Union also had a much larger army, and I believe (I will research the topic) a greater arsenal of ICBM's. This i
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_nuclear_weapons

This spending is also why, had it not been for our alliances (though it greatly pains me to say it), the United States would have been crushed in our first few battles (the Soviets would use their massive army to trample ours). But after awhile we would wear them down. I envision a Soviet invasion of the United States as being similar to the movie Red Dawn (Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen). I think the lines would bow, but not break completely.

by the 1980s, it was becoming more clear that the USSR was rotting from within (from an economic standpoint that is).

Couldn't agree more, and the Afghanistan fiasco fueled the fires of rebellion.

and i know the liberals on these boards don't like it but Reagan's convoluted & far-fetched Star Wars project really, really threw the Soviets for a loop. of course, this project was pretty much science fiction. however, it scared the be-jesus out of the Reds in that they truly believed that the Yanks could pull it off. as such, the commies saw the proverbial 'writing-on-the-wall' so to speak in that the Russians felt that they could have piles and piles of ballistic missiles and the SDI thingie would simply knock them out of the sky. iow, the scales of MAD had tipped in favor of the Americans (or at least this is what the Russians though at the time).

This is very true, but I'm sure the KGB operatives in the United States would have picked up on, and reported back on the progress of this. Had the Soviets put forth a little research on the project, they would have realized that "Star Wars" wasn't really feasible. I grant you, that though the project is scrapped (I was watching a bunch of alien show on the History Channel recently) and only a small part of a "Star Wars" system is around today. In the late 1990's, the US developed a powerful laser that they integrated into a passenger jet (I forget the type but like a 747 or something), and according to the military officer's that worked on this, say that this is a "partial realization of the Star Wars system". But I believe that this will be like the Maginot Line: built, but never was used for the ultimate purpose of its design (subverted via the Ardennes forest, though they did eventually have to wheel around and "remove" this small thorn).

ion the matter of whether it was "necessary":
it's a tough call. however, the advent of the nuclear age certainly contributed a great deal to the angst between east and west. it should probably be said that there was most definitely an air of mistrust between the US and the SU dating back to the bolshevik revolution. Stalin loathed the west for this (and what the soviet dicatator considered the delaying of an opening of a western front during ww2 - ie D-Day) and capitalism in general. this question is a very, very complicated one and i can assure you that there is no "right" answer. many historians have very different takes on the subject.

Quite true.

 

[El Justo]

good points Tank_Guy#3

as far as the military aspect of it is concerned...

the US had a tremendous lead, albeit unbeknownst to US pols at the time, in the actual IRBM & ICBM race. it was Kruschev's facade which led the world to believe that the USSR had an arsenal which was greater than the US's. Gaddis goes into this aspect in great detail in his book.

as for the actual troop numbers and equipment:
the US and her allies lagged really far behind when compared to the troop levels of the USSR. however, the technological advantage that the West enjoyed is often understated. iow, it was a matter of quantity (commies) vs. quality (the west). i think it would've been a matter of first strike capabilities for the NATO bloc while the commies would've enjoyed more success if it was a protracted battle in europe b/c of the sheer numbers involved w/ the WP armed forces.

i'm not so sure that the soviets could've undertaken an actual invasion of n. america. that'd have been a logistical nightmare for the commies. however, i do remember watching Red Dawn as a kid and nearly peed my pants.

i found it extremely peculiar that soviet intelligence was not able to correctly assess (or even to come close for that matter) the viability of the SDI programme. i mean, it is almost a joke how Reagan proposed the whole thing. his own cabinet had no clue about it and it is alleged to be Reagan's brain child. Gaddis explained that the technology itself was decades away from realization. knowing this, i can assume that the Soviet intel networks really dropped the ball on this one

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

good points Tank_Guy#3

as far as the military aspect of it is concerned...

the US had a tremendous lead, albeit unbeknownst to US pols at the time, in the actual IRBM & ICBM race. it was Kruschev's facade which led the world to believe that the USSR had an arsenal which was greater than the US's. Gaddis goes into this aspect in great detail in his book.

I do believe that the USSR did have a greater arsenal of nukes, but the West had a greater arsenal of technology and weapons with which to combat the Reds.

as for the actual troop numbers and equipment:
the US and her allies lagged really far behind when compared to the troop levels of the USSR. however, the technological advantage that the West enjoyed is often understated. iow, it was a matter of quantity (commies) vs. quality (the west). i think it would've been a matter of first strike capabilities for the NATO bloc while the commies would've enjoyed more success if it was a protracted battle in europe b/c of the sheer numbers involved w/ the WP armed forces.

I will refer you to the answer I have given for the above answer about the ICBM's and Technology. But the Reds did have an immense advantage in numbers.

i'm not so sure that the soviets could've undertaken an actual invasion of n. america. that'd have been a logistical nightmare for the commies. however, i do remember watching Red Dawn as a kid and nearly peed my pants.

Well, I hope you have increased the amount of control you have over your bladder.

Taking the little bit of info I know from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I am led to believe that they were very well equipped. But again, I would have to look into the matter.

i found it extremely peculiar that soviet intelligence was not able to correctly assess (or even to come close for that matter) the viability of the SDI programme. i mean, it is almost a joke how Reagan proposed the whole thing. his own cabinet had no clue about it and it is alleged to be Reagan's brain child. Gaddis explained that the technology itself was decades away from realization. knowing this, i can assume that the Soviet intel networks really dropped the ball on this one

Perhaps that was their intent. Maybe they realized that there was no possible, with the current technology, that the United States could create such a defense system.

 

[ULTIMATEGP]

I think you need read a bit more into this subject. Do you even know how and why the cold war began or the history of how Communism came around? Do you know how bad Joseph Stalin was?

Its more complex than simply "hating some because they're different" which is really a simpleton's view of the subject.

Yes i'm aware of how Stalin killed millions and how communsim came out of a bloody civil war.

 

[Odin2006]

How exactly did America "win" the Cold War?

We didn't the kleptocrats rulling the USSR f*cked themselves over. Right-wingers like to say that Saint Ronnie's millitary spending bankrupt the USSR, but the writing was already on the wall for the USSR by the late 70's. We didn't bankrupt the USSR, the Mujahadeen in Afganistan did (though we did help them, including a fellow known as Osama bin Laden who started going after us after the USSR was pwned. )

 

[Commy]

The Cold War was inevitable when Joseph Stalin didn't fulfill his promises set out in the Yalta conference.

What promises?

 

[El Justo]

What promises?

i think he meant stalin's promise to fdr & churchill that eastern europe would be "democracized" so to speak upon liberation from the germans.

 

[Commy]

In this countries communists won at free paliament elections.

 

[colontos]

In this countries communists won at free paliament elections.

I can see your Soviet education was not lost on you.

The elections went like this: Stalin/USSR gets 2 votes. All the people of the respective countries get one collective vote, but this vote is later found to be invalid. Then Soviet tanks roll in. Democracy!

 

[DAv2003]

The Cold War was born out of Soviet fears over another invasion and American paranoia over the Soviet Union. Stalin (and a fair few others) wanted a buffer in Europe in case Germany ever went for the hatrick and America wanted economic dominance over Europe. The main clashing point was over Germany itself as Stalin was unwilling to give Germany a chance to grow powerful again and become a threat.

 

[Gelion]

Communism and despotism are 2 different things and they have no bearing on each other

Capitalism and Democracy are 2 different things and they have no bearing on each other

The former is a form of economic structure while the latter is a method for determining who shall lead a country.

Neither US or the USSR liked each other because they saw each other as a threat. This was helped by MAD (mutual assured destruction - if they had a war its bye bye human race). So instead of physical conflict which would destroy every living thing on the planet the 2 super powers decided they would settel their differences by seeing who could convert the most countries to their economic philosophy. Conflicts between capitalists and communists in small countries like korean and vietnam were escalated by backing from their respective super powers. If the USSR had a state religion of worshipping garbage trucks the US would have said that it was evil satanic worship.

Both Capitalism and Communism are great things to have IF they work. Neither do. Communism appears to work less. Communism (as a philosophy) was not given a great chance as the USSR was still poor from the WWs and its governments were more concerned with spreading their ideals and building nukes to worry about the people living in their country. This was their undoing. This should not reflect poorly on communism but rather on the USSR and in a good part the US.

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