There's more to US history than Zinn.
This is Gold.
I've noticed that many now treat Zinn's A People's History of the United States as some sort of political bible, where in reality it's not that great.
There's more to US history than Zinn.
The scale was as important as anything else. We might have gotten the Arleigh Burke Class in some amount, but we wouldn't have had 600 ships in the navy. We would have deployed the M1s, but not in a 28-division army. Roots in Carter or not, Reagan deserves the credit for bringing them to full flower.
Reagan more, but even Carter to a certain extent. In general, it was a good policy decision by our policy wonks and thankfully President Reagan listened to his advisors there.
Absolutely. The Arms buildup, causing the oil glut as a result of the Iran-Iraq War, and aiding the Muj in Afghanistan (Along with other third world proxy conflicts) directly led to the collapse of the USSR. The belief the Soviet Empire's fall was inevitable is more confirmation bias than anything else.
And the belief that Reagan was the one who won the Cold War is completely ridiculous
And the belief that Reagan was the one who won the Cold War is completely ridiculous
The oil glut wasn’t caused by Reagan, or even the Iran-Iraq War specifically. It was caused primarily by reduced demand (think how small 80s cars got vs 70s cars) and over supply as a result of the reaction to the 1970s energy crisis. The Saudis in particular wanted low prices to get the world off emerging energy saving technologies. But certain measures like improved home insulation were already baked in.
The President who "won" the Cold War was Truman, who was the architect of a strategy that was consistently applied from c. 1948 to 1991. Collective defense and containment was what won the Cold War. Reagan, like every President from Truman to HW Bush, did his part and left his individual mark on that strategy, but the idea that any one President alone made the difference in winning victory is misplaced. It was consistent policy applied by Presidents of both parties that "won" the Cold War.
I would even go so far as to say (and I did at the time) that the US did not "win" the Cold War, so much the USSR lost, first. The US & the Soviets had been in an economic arms race since 1945. The Reagan administration kicked that into high gear, and raised the stakes-through spending, and borrowing more to spend so that the USSR wrecked its economy trying to keep up. Yet, since then, the US has kept up the same borrow/spend/buildup policy pretty much intact. It remains to be seen when we wreck our own economy trying to keep up, or if we finally act like the Cold War has, indeed, ended.
Except Reagan went for 'Rollback' rather than Truman's 'Containment'
Where did Reagan roll the Soviets back?
Grenada and arguably Afghanistan. If you want to stretch the definition you could say his policies caused the rollback of communism all the way to Moscow
So when is this failure due?
It's been 27 years
Well, I can't help but notice that while we
continue to plow $, $, & still more $ into
defense, we spend little on our infra-struc-
ture, even though much of it is literally
falling apart.