Reagan did not end the Soviet Union by big military spending, it imploded on itself?

Question

Why does the US media hear something and just repeat it without checking the facts!!!!
Experts on the topic don't believe it was US big military spending that ended the Soviet Union

lttlehrs... : I took a course on it with people who lived there during the time, have PhD's in the subject and spend their lives studying analysing it, I learned some things, it was interesting, but not what is stated as unquestioned fact over and over again

lttlehrs: Reagan revitilized our military; I agree, but did that cause USSR to disband? Did that bankrupt the USSR? maybe not. My problem is a certain group will make a statement, the media repeats it as fact without questioning it. It becomes Factiness.

chris h: yes, a depression in oil prices, afganistan war and corruption were contributing factors.

Maxx P: Lack of data both ways.., So all I'm saying is don't accept things as truth till you have some data right?? I'm don't like communism..., Condelissa Rice is a College Russian Expert, but she is not a communist or leftist...,

Answer 1

Wow a lot of posts here...I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the other piece of the Soviet 'Implosion' Sure they reached the limit on their MasterCard before we did, but it was not just spending that did it (did anyone mention what Afghanistan cost them?)

Look what happened to their source of foreign exchange. The Soviets made most of their foreign exchange selling Oil! Yes take a look at the Caspian and Soviet Central Asia! The Price of Oil imploded during the 80's. Remember the gas line we had here during the late 70's the jump in the price of oil and the rise of OPEC. That spawned a big push for fuel efficiency. We legislated fleet MPG averages (called CARAFE? i think). As more fuel efficient equipment hit the market...and more oil as well...we had a lot exploration spawned by the steep rise in prices. Suddenly demand for oil started to decrease in the 80's and prices plummeted.

Voila lots less income for the Soviets while they kept spending.

Answer 2

Your question is "why does the media do such a poor job of fact checking?" I am not sure. I agree that they often do not check the facts, but I'm not sure about the example you use.

I listened to the News Hour on PBS quite a bit at the time of the "implosion" and while a few pundits argued that we spent them into the ground, most seemed to agree that the system was doomed by its own structure and dishonesty.

I agree with your premise that the Soviet Union imploded, but I got most of the facts on which I base my opinion from the US media.

I suspect the lack of fact checking has gotten worse over the years, rather than better. I saw a post recently that used a "news" blog as an "irrefutable source." I happened to agree with the conclusions the blog was reaching, but it was passionate and well constructed rhetoric and facts I had seen elsewhere, not facts I'd seen only on this one site which it really did not substantiate, that made it good reading.

There is a degree of intellectual laziness in any industry. It can, however, be disastrous for the country when then the media gets lazy.

Answer 3

The Soviets spent their big spending on nuclear missiles instead of food or growing food so their people starved and wanted a change in government. The nuclear warheads of the Soviet missiles were made of solid gold so it would fly straighter and reach and hit Washington, D.C. from Kiev in the Ukraine. The Ancient Greeks would use solid gold arrow tips and javelins because it would fly straighter and hit the target. Imagine the number of missiles the Soviet Union was making with solid gold warheads, Reagan could have spent all he wanted; but American farmers continued to grow food. The Soviets in their perfect Communist World even bought wheat from the United States.

Answer 4

Actually Richard - you are right!!

I studied Russian in college as my foreign language. My university had and still has the TOP Russian department in the nation (the NSA came recruiting every semester). Our profs all spend alot of time there. Add to that, I hosted a Russian student for several years so I can say I do know a bit about the country. It is completely true that the Soviet Union was an empty shell that was imploding. A system that is rotten to the core, as theirs was, cannot withstand the test of time.

Almost all we saw here was mere showmanship. Those missils they paraded down Red Square - EMPTY! They managed to fool our government though!

They had so little real technology and were so burdened with corruption, the country could not sustain the illusion or the public unrest. Most Russians lived in abject poverty. It's amazing with the public will believe.

Answer 5

This is absolutely correct and that is by doing research on President Reagan and his administration and by studying the Russian
Government during that time and the USA's
military buildup did have a little bit to do with Russia imploding and President Reagan's stance on the Russian Leadership!

Answer 6

Reagan's military build up caused the collapse of the USSR.

It took a very long time for the communist apologists to come up with that pathetic argument that they have just now touted.

College professors are notoriously leftist and cannot be trusted on these matters.

Show me some hard data to prov your theory; until then I will go on just believing the truth.

Answer 7

That theory is partially correct and partially incorrect...maybe incomplete is a better word.

Reagan did lay the foundation for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he didn't do it all by himself. In 1979 the US Military was a joke. Our front line aircraft were falling apart at the rivets and the Carter Administration was doing nothing to improve upon the designs of planes like F-15s, F-16s, and F-14s...all still relatively new to service, but they never recieved the funding for advanced program development to correct the initial design flaws. The F-18 was in testing in the late 1970s, but stealth and smart bombs were pipe-dreams and were not being funded. Exports of US arms sales were down. Russia was supplying much of the 3rd world and when they couldn' t meet demand China and Belgium had no problems stepping up small-arms production. Similarly, US military exports to the Middle East, Iran in particular, declined sharply in the 1970s after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Almost every Islamic country except Saudi Arabia was flying Warsaw Pact aircraft.

The Soviet Navy at the time was immense. Like our airpower, our seapower was also pretty lean. Here is where Reagan made a severe impact. Production of Nimitz class carriers and overhauls of older carriers skyrocketed in the 1980s, thus giving the US the ability to put 12 acres of soverign US territory any where we damned well wanted to. The submarine force greatly improved with Los Angeles class subs rolloing out of drydocks at warp speed and Ohio class boomers laying hanging in reach of the Soviet shores.

Missle development, SDI, and CIA run operations around the world also helped fuel the fires that would propel the Soviet Union to collapse.

The Soviets could not keep up. They lacked the money to seriously invest in upgraded weapons systems and did not have the scientific capability to get 2-steps ahead of the US. It was the perfect viscious circle.

As the Kremiln spent more and more money either trying to develop new weapons or steal ones from the US, it was just less and less money that went into their education and social programs. Meanwhile, the USSR was bogged down in a failing war in Afghanistan. Morale in the military was extremely low.

But then look at what is going on in the US in the 1980s. Reagan is slashing taxes and opening up ways for new industries to emerge. Computers went from the size of houses to desktops with the same capabilities in a matter of years. Stocks wre going up, people were making money and we entered a true decade of decadence. The Soviets could not keep up and western culture invaded Eastern Europe like locusts. Global 24-hour a day news outlets and MTV played an important role as well. The Soviet boycott of the 1984 olympics also did not help. Rumors still rise that 50% of the USSR delegation was planning to defect.

Striking the Soviet military was the most effective way to implode their economy. It did nearly bankrupt us as well. Reagan knew we were going into massive deficits to bankrupt the Russians, that's why all of the tax cuts happened in the 80s as well. It took us 10 years to recover and we were out of the hole by 1997. Clinton can take the credit if he wants, but wasn't his plan to get us out of debt...Reagan had it planned out from the start.

I don't know what "experts" you are citing. I've taken multiple classes on the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the economic problems in the USSR, and have written a bunch of papers on the late 1970s era, the Soviet Invasion and War in Afghanistan and 1980s US military build-up. Everything I've read and researched point to the Soviets' economic and political collapse being triggered by the military build-up of the 1980s.

Although in my heart of hearts I like to think it was the 1980 US Hockey team that struck the first blow to the end of the Cold War!

Answer 8

Wow, lots of people that have no clue on history, but they want to stop by and bash Reagan for his role.
He didn't have alzheimers problems while in office so get off that kick you libs.
The idea that he was responsible for the callapse comes from a little thing the kids probably know nothing about called "the Cold War"
It was a policy that if Russia does anything, America tops it, then Russia match's it, and it ends up as a never ending cycle. In their attempt to keep up with us, yes, Russia had a greater conventional arsenal, but we are separated by an ocean, so nuclear weapons was the big threat. We both as coutnries threatened mutual destruction if either one of us launched first. What do you thin the whole idea of having missle silo's all over america for Norad or the Chrome-Dome missions were for ? We had planes with nukes in them flying 24 hours a day.
It was a tense cold war and we won through attrician.
Socialism just was not sustainable.
Check your history, the Democratic presidents weren't responsible for building up our military or arsenals, Reagan was. He did a good job..he's no Messiah, but give the man credit, he's done more for this country than most of you people.

Answer 9

Well at least part of the reason that it "imploded on itself" is because their communist based economy could not generate enough money to compete with the US's capitalist based economy in the arms race.

Had the US not pressured the Soviet Union with enormous military spending, the Soviets probably would not have run out of resources as quickly as they did.

Superpowers don't just spontaneously "implode" on themselves...there are many catalysts.

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In regards to Mas Tequilas answer below, are you implying that the Russians actually had very little technology and were just parading around fake technological achievements? You have got to be kidding me. The Russians reached space before the US, they developed and tested larger nuclear weapons, and all of their other war machines were on par with the top ones in the world. To say that they were just faking their technology and military might, like North Korea currently has been, is ridiculous.

Answer 10

To credit the US with the end of the USSR entirely would be ridiculous. However, economists, policy and military analysts, historieans, etc. who have studied this do point to tthe pressure of US economic and military competition as major contributing factors to the eventual disitegration of the Soviet Union.

US military spending was relevant only to the extent that it took a lot of money to have the kind of military needed to create that pressure.