Many people believe the B2 won the cold war.....

its funny how the cold war was a big game of chess, albeit with the kings being the respective countries, using other countries as their pawns, and nuclear weapons as their key pieces.

Ronald Wilson Reagan! Our ultimate weapon was the ultimate statesman! ALL HAIL the memory of the greatest world leader in human history! He brought back the economy and made Evil Empires tremble. NOW! We must draw on his masterful influence for todays problems. If a Ronald Reagan was in office now every nation would have had every terrorist bound,gagged and on a slow boat to Guantanamo the day after 9/11. Bin Laden would have been caught or killed in two weeks. God I miss Reagan....\sniff.. ..choke...tear...

I second that. I was a kid, but my dad loves to tell me about the time that lebanon i think tried some crap and killed a couple US marines so reagan sent the aircraft carriers over and bombed the # outta the place and also libya and kaudafi, hazy on details, but pretty much saying reagan took no crap from anyone.

Train

BigTrain,

"hazy on details"

That should be your motto.

Cheers

BHR

American Mad Man, again;

the reasons of the soviet colapse is mainly the lenin death, and the frustrated implementation of the new economic policy, with the stalin rise the comunism turn in a corrupted organization and centralism (lenin knew that), later krushev tried other "new economic policy" he almost reach that, but lost the fight, gorvachev tried that in the 80s but he didnt have the carism and suport of krushev the reforms were to late

some of these reforms tried to find a way to share all that technologic progress that only enjoined the soviet army to all the contry and industry, wasnt the weapon race (in that way i can also say that the WW1 or WW2 were the causes -but such events are also relationated with the stalin rise-)

i cant believe what im reading......ronald reagan????? absurd, he only was in the moment and the place of the events, only that, the same for the pope or mrs tacher, the true reasons are the posted before, but is obvious that the lack of history studies result in that american-nationalism-republican claims

I think the Soviet Union fell largely due to the inflexibility and inefficiency of a "planned economy", at the end apparently the underground black market was bigger than the official economy by far, hence the continuing power of the Russian Mafia.

Trying to keep up with US defense spending certainly helped the collapse hurry along, but I think the collapse would have happened anyway. Despite my misgivings about pure unrestricted free-market capitalism (last time we really tried that was in the 20's, leading to the Great Depression), history shows that command economies just don't work. The most successfull economies in the world are all mixed market based economies with limited socialist features, look at Europe, Japan, and yes, the US.

Originally posted by grunt2
i cant believe what im reading......ronald reagan?????

absurd, he only was in the moment and the place of the events, only that, the same for the pope or mrs tacher, the true reasons are the posted before, but is obvious that the lack of history studies result in that american-nationalism-republican claims

Grunt. again...

I believe it is your own nationalism that is resulting in your belief that the US did not influence the collapse of the USSR.

Your history is very wrong if you believed that the Reagan initiated arms race with the Soviet Union had nothing to do with their down fall. The simple fact is that Russia could not keep up from an economic standpoint. Yes, this was because of internal problems, but the USSR needed to be pushed over the edge, and that is what Reagan did.


Like I said, it was not ALL Reagans doing - he was simply savy enough to take advantage of the situation presented to him. If you can not recognize this as fact - which Russians, Americans, and the rest of the world agree on - you are hopeless.

Reagan's military buildup helped, but how many American's realize that the "Reagan military buildup" actually began under (gasp!) Carter? The F-117, the ATB program that resulted in the B-2, & several other programs Reagan is generally credited with actually began under Carter, who despite being typicall being portrayed as "soft" by the right, actually increased defense spending every year of his administration. An ex-nuclear sub officer, he was hardly hostile to the military, despite current mythology to the contrary.

Originally posted by xmotex
Reagan's military buildup helped, but how many American's realize that the "Reagan military buildup" actually began under (gasp!) Carter? The F-117, the ATB program that resulted in the B-2, & several other programs Reagan is generally credited with actually began under Carter, who despite being typicall being portrayed as "soft" by the right, actually increased defense spending every year of his administration. An ex-nuclear sub officer, he was hardly hostile to the military, despite current mythology to the contrary.

Though they may have started under Carter, they did not get the Financial backing to do anything with the ideas untill Reagan started pumping money into the military.

Carter was a joke of a president. Perhaps one of the 3 worst in US history.

american mad man, first im not russian, im not from eastearn europe, and im not comunist or pro comunist, but i like to read about politcs and history, i know concepts about aerodynamics and aerospace design -i have some friends that work in that industry- and i love to talk about quantum physiscs.

now, the weapon race obvius affect the economy, also the american economy was affected, but that wasnt the main reason, the true reason ,something that krushev and lenin knew, was the centralist comunism, when gorvachev tried to begin with the reforms was too late, the soviet comunism sistem was an pure comunism, the american modern capitalism is an mix of free market concepts and goverment control, krushev (VERY,VERY OUT FROM REAGAN TIMES) tried an goverment economy with limited free market concets, is obvius that some people that didnt know about politics, society, economy and history fall in those ridiculus claims

The Cold War was a gigantic pissing contest. AMM is right about Regan spending them into recievership. I will debate the Carter issue though. Just not here, don't want to be jacking anyones thread.

How you could even bring carter into this blows my mind. The peanut farmer rich boy who decided it would be a good idea to let cubans come over so castro unloaded his jails and sent the criminals to miami. Great job carter, way to go. He cancelled or refused to fund almost every major weapons platform and was hated amoung most americans and literaly all of the military. Carter cancelled the B1-a which reagan had to restart. Carter is a joke and a horrible president. Im just glad I was born after that fiasco. This thread is getting off topic.

The point I was trying to make was that MILITARILY wise, which constituted an overwhelming majority of Soviet budgets, the US outspent and out performed the USSR to the point were the last straw was that last dime that USSR tried to pour into the pot of research that collapsed it. Our economy was so superior and strong he could have increased the military budget 5 fold and still keep it running. And the trident sub was well designed and so dominate that the USSR had no chance. Then all of a sudden a hanger opens in palmdale, CA and out some this thing called the B2 which just blew peoples freakin minds. The game was over. Reagan did it.

Train

Originally posted by grunt2
american mad man, first im not russian, im not from eastearn europe, and im not comunist or pro comunist, but i like to read about politcs and history, i know concepts about aerodynamics and aerospace design -i have some friends that work in that industry- and i love to talk about quantum physiscs.

Well from what I recall of your posts they are almost always in favor of Russia/her equipment or depricating US stuff. If that impression is wrong, I apologize.

now, the weapon race obvius affect the economy, also the american economy was affected, but that wasnt the main reason, the true reason ,something that krushev and lenin knew, was the centralist comunism, when gorvachev tried to begin with the reforms was too late, the soviet comunism sistem was an pure comunism, the american modern capitalism is an mix of free market concepts and goverment control, krushev (VERY,VERY OUT FROM REAGAN TIMES) tried an goverment economy with limited free market concets, is obvius that some people that didnt know about politics, society, economy and history fall in those ridiculus claims

Like I said Grunt, I do not believe that Reagan was the singular reason for the demise of the USSR.

I agree that it was the USSRs backwards comunist system that put them in the position to fail.

However, they would not have collapsed had Reagan not pushed them into spending so much on their military.

my posts dont try to be in favor of russian, if you see there are very objetive, i never have said "american is crap" but we must acept that the media is very infuenced for american interests, and in this forum we see some members that acept those media "facts" in a blinded way.

about the military spending,again that have nothing to do with the soviet colapse, was an problem of trust, when gorvachev implemented the free market in the SU, the big capitals got into the soviet economy, that induced an "patrialchal" state, those patriarchs didnt trust in the gorvachev goverment (an leader without carism and inteligence) , the problem wasnt the lack of money by the military spending, was the increase of wealth (and power) in few hands out of the goverment.



[edit on 11-3-2005 by grunt2]

The thing that I believed killed Russia was that nation trying to convert towards a mixed economy while their economy was in a huge slump. I believed they tryed to do what China is doing now. But the different is that Russia couldnt because of the demand of their military in their economy. A nation cant just transform its economy to something completely different and not suffer a major shock to their economy. It just collaped.

Now the thing is that you can say that the B-2 did cause the fall of the Soviet Empire because it pushed them over the limit of what they can handle in terms of building units to counter the B-2. I believe if the B-2 wasnt known of by the Russians then its possible that the Soviets wouldnt have fell. Im not saying everything would have been ok because I believe that Russia would have lost its super power status because they wouldnt have been able to keep up with America anyway.

Lets not forget America almost went bankrupt also. America didnt have a 10 trillion dollar GDP in the 80s. That arms race put the both of us at our breaking point. The difference was that America was able to recover because of the internet age and not to mention the freewar we were able to wage in IRaq. We were lucky Russia fell because the 80s with Reagan was like living in a poor ass country. Life wasnt easy. Life just got better with Clintion. (No im not saying he actually caused America to recover he was just at the right place at the right time)

And also please dont call Russia a communist country because it was more of a Sudo Communist then a actual communist country.

ahhh, first every winged nuker isnt an pre-emptive attack machine they are tooo slow to do that, the b2 isnt so stealth as many people think (and that is confirmed with nortrop-usaf tests), all winged nukers (b52, tu95s,b1s,tu160 and b2s) are backup nukers, that is if the ICBM or SLBMs fail the target, the bombers can get in and destroy it -with the suposicion that the mayority of the defences were destroyed-, the b2 wasnt designed to counter movable ICBMs (look the gulf war operations against the scuds), it was designed to avoid soviets movable sams that have an high survival probability and are almost undetectable, the soviet winged nukers was always an low priority defence policy (due the high number of ICBMs), but in the american case the back-up nukers was always an high priority policy (due the high number of SLBM), the soviets didnt need to be in "equal" technologic terms because both had diferent strategies.

if krushev would reach the "new policy" objetives the SU would be an modern china, the reforms also depends with the right man and the right time,america as the soviet union were not near to an bankrupt due the weapon race, the countries bankrupt reasons are always internal speculation or power problems, no matter what could say the nationalists or "super-ronald reagan" fans



[edit on 12-3-2005 by grunt2]

The B-1A was cancelled because it's mission (high altitude penetration) would have been suicidal by the time it was deployed, thanks to improvements in Soviet air defenses. The B-1 program continued, and became the B-1B, a low altitude penetration bomber with a reduced radar cross section. All the modern rightwing hatred for Carter ("He's history's greatest monster!" - from The Simpsons) is fairly amusing, especially on the military stuff. Go look up the defense budgets - military spending rose considerably under Carter's administration. The "hollow force" post-Vietnam was largely a product of the (Republican) Nixon and Ford administrations.

He cancelled or refused to fund almost every major weapons platform

Really? Excepting the B-1A, which was cancelled because it's design was tactically obsolete, name one.

[edit on 12-3-2005 by xmotex]

He cancelled the trident submarine, pulled all Nuc weapons out of south korea in first 24 hrs in office without consulting any military brass, and shelved the development of the nuetron bomb, vetoed a nuclear aircraft carrier. I know theres more, just google and find it all for yourself. Im too busy playing halo right now to look for it all. But if u want to do some research, go for it.

Train

Originally posted by BigTrain
He cancelled the trident submarine, pulled all Nuc weapons out of south korea in first 24 hrs in office without consulting any military brass, and shelved the development of the nuetron bomb, vetoed a nuclear aircraft carrier. I know theres more, just google and find it all for yourself. Im too busy playing halo right now to look for it all. But if u want to do some research, go for it.

Train

So you're saying that no president that is willing to cut back on millitary spending and look at social issues is worthy? BTW, the nation was torn during this time and Carter's administration was all about healing. Guess what, history repeats itself and you're going to need it again after the seperation that's going on again.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but nobody "won" the cold war. Its just that it petered out when one of the protagonists socio-political systems collapsed and they had to walk away. This may be a temporary condition. A lot of people in Russia would like to recapture past glories.

I realize the US arms buildup is getting some credit for this, probably with some measure of justification, but I believe essentially the USSR was simply an unsustainable system.

When Russia recovers, they could be formidable power, given their population, size and resources.