What if Reagan's 1984 joke was real?

Will the hatred of this great man never cease? Reagan was the first Western statesman who moved away from the old "containment" and "detente" policies to a commitment to actually defeat the Soviet Union.

I lived right through those years, as an adult, and remember well the changes in the world that the Administration of Ronald Reagan brought about. They were good changes.

I don't know where B Munro lived at that time, but I think he missed a few critical events. May be getting confused with the previous President, Mr Carter, but there was a consistency in appeasement about that particular President.


You mean the one who started the military buildup Reagan expanded on? The one under which aid to the Afghan resistance began? The one who imposed the grain embargo (the one which Reagan cancelled to please US farm votes.)?

I was living in the US through the eighties. You, I imagine, were inhabiting the same right-wing fantasy land you still live in. (You are aware dentente began under a Republican president, no? And that Reagan's right-wing buddies at the start of his Presidency were obsessed with the notion of avoiding being _defeated_ by the super-USSR of their delusions rather than having any real plan as to how to actually "defeat" the USSR? We can be thankful that Reagan was capable to breaking away from their paranoid fantasies when he negociated with Gorbachev).

Bruce
 
Reagan and the GOP, not to mention America as a whole had absolutely no plan to "defeat" the USSR. There were two doctrines of thought and two which often overlapped as well; competition and negotiation. The USSR collapsed for the former reason. It had become corrupt, unstable, and unable to compete with the US and Western powers anymore and that is why it fell. It's not this story of Reagan showed them our freedom and they fell; no. He was in the right place at the right time. By the time Reagan got into office to begin with, the USSR was going to have to same possibility and chances to collapse no matter what President was in the US.

Who defeated the USSR? Every Western leader and every Allied power that existed in those past 50 years. The idea that somehow Reagan as a lone Superman did it in a vacuum is ridiculous.
 
I very carefully gave credit to the Reagan Administration as a whole, not just Reagan the man. Credit should also go to the Thatcher Government in UK, but I really struggle to think of any others who should get credit.

You can be thankful for these Administrations that you have the liberty to inhabit your Left-Wing fantasy land.
 
You can be thankful for these Administrations that you have the liberty to inhabit your Left-Wing fantasy land.

I know you're new here, but in general political attacks are friwbed upon in favor of a reasoned discourse based on facts.
 
If I am in error I will take note of that and amend my posts accordingly, but B Munro was the first to refer to fantasy lands, in that particular case a Right Wing fantasy land that I was supposed to inhabit. My reply was to him.

Is that a privilege reserved for 1000 post members?
 
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If I am in error I will take note of that and amend my posts accordingly, but B Munro was the first to refer to fantasy lands, in that particular case a Right Wing fantasy land that I was supposed to inhabit. My reply was to him.

Is that a privilege reserved for 1000 post members?

No it is not a Privilege reserved for 1000 post members at all .

And What helped kill the Soviet Union Was the star Wars Program the Soviets could not compite to build it themself .
 
Agreed, that was the final straw for the Soviet camel, a strategy originating from the Reagan Administration and bitterly opposed by the Democrats in Congress.

It was indeed the root of the peurile "Ronny Raygun" insults levied at that President.
 
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If I am in error I will take note of that and amend my posts accordingly, but B Munro was the first to refer to fantasy lands, in that particular case a Right Wing fantasy land that I was supposed to inhabit. My reply was to him.

Eh. He's got a point; the wankage of Reagan isn't born out by the facts, as he later demonstrated. And his response was a bit harsh, but IMO valid. Yoru statements on Carter are fundamentally flawed, as is your refusal to acknowledge that Reagan's lifting of the grain embargo may have prolonged the evil empire's survival.
 
Stop bashing on Reagan, clintonauts. The closest we came to nuclear war in the 1980s was in 1983, when Andropov was convinced we were about to first strike his ass...a false alarm at a Soviet control post reported a massive US missile launch in late 1983...the officer on duty decided not to forward the alert because he thought it was false...if he had, no telling what might have happened if Andropov had been told about it...He was totally paranoid about a US first strike, and might have preempted...So bash Andropov, if you feel like hatin' on the eighties...

<plug>There's an entire TL based on that, over at the Wikia. We're currently their overwhelmingly most popular page: http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/1983:_Doomsday.</plug> I admit that on the "wild & crazy fantasy... sober study in historical counterfactuality" spectrum, it's a little farther to the left than many here would tolerate, but it's a damn fun and interesting project to work on.
 
My comment re Carter was also harsh mebbe. But the man was naive to an extreme in dealing with foreign powers (Still is for that matter).

By his references to the "National malaise" he did much to destroy the morale of the West also.

He treated the Soviets as equals even in moral matters, and typical of a person whose long-held views are suddenly shattered by reality, (The Afghan Invasion) he did a last-minute U-turn, starting the massive rearmament programs that were followed through by Reagan. Unfortunately by that time it was too late, and most people viewed him as a fool at best and a bloody fool at worst.

Anybody else remember the debate with Reagan, when Carter inferred that a Reagan election would result in war with the USSR, and Reagan with a big "Aw Shucks" smile and shrug of his shoulders reduced Carter to the stature of a shrill spoilt child...."there he goes again..."

A man of undoubted physical courage, he was unfit for the demands of the Presidency.

All a bit off-topic I know.
 
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I very carefully gave credit to the Reagan Administration as a whole, not just Reagan the man. Credit should also go to the Thatcher Government in UK, but I really struggle to think of any others who should get credit.

You can be thankful for these Administrations that you have the liberty to inhabit your Left-Wing fantasy land.

Everyone
who fought Communism in the Free World should get credit. The flaw here is the conception of the 1980's in a vaccuum that they weren't in. The Soviets had been pushed toward the edge over the course of a roughly 40 year Cold war with the west, not an 8 year administration. Reagan and Thatcher (not to mention the other western leaders of that time who continued fighting Communism) did little more than continue the same trend; its just that that trend had rendered the USSR so downtrodden already that they fell as it continued. Every US President foremost should get credit as America was the competing Superpower against the Soviets. The concept of Super Reagan coming in and knocking down a USSR that would have continued without him is a cliche rendered from overt simplicity. The USSR, by the time Reagan got into office, was already on it's last legs, and would have had the same chance of collapse under any other President who may have alternatively filled the post with the previous history intact.

And the last part is rather baffling and also feeds into the "Super Reagan" sort of mentality I think. How did Reagan give any liberty? We were already a democracy. The Commies weren't looking at America ready to invade when Reagan flew in and saved us all from the Red Menace like a B-movie or anything. You can say a lot of things about Reagan, but you need to draw a line in the sand somewhere in the character build up.

And What helped kill the Soviet Union Was the star Wars Program the Soviets could not compite to build it themself .

Only in a sort of 20/20 perspective. Really, Star Wars was a ridiculous prospect in reality and that's why most politicians opposed it. The US did not have the technology back then foremost, it was impractical and it was way too damned expensive for something we were likely not to be able to do. So the people who opposed it were more than justified in opposing it. The Soviets, though, wholly accepted it and knew they couldn't compete with that. Then again, we couldn't build that any way. And it wouldn't have affected the USSR if it weren't already on the brink nor did it really do all that much in process since we never got one off the ground either, though it did instill somewhat of a defeat mentality in the Soviets. However, I'd say the effect was rather minor overall and more psychological than anything else.
 
Just give up aleks. This is obviously left-wing trolling. (The only thing I hate more than right-wing trolling.) Seriously the OP was named ClintonForever. Do you really expect a serious discussion from ClintonForever. I think it would be best that any non diehard conservatives and liberals left this thread and ignored obvious political flamebait. The lefties will always hate reagan and the righties will always hail him as a god. Both sides will keep playing their political shell games until enough intelligent people get up and leave and personally I don't think that will ever happen. So don't try to win over the political lapdogs, just ignore them and move on with your life.
 

Paul MacQ

Donor
All things being as they are, If for some reason RR Goes Strike First 1984 what and how hard do things get Hit.

And sizeable all sizable USSR bases gets removed off the Planet, Europe and US also Become Waste Land.

Would Israel get its weapons off before the Russian had sent part of there Southern Mid Range weapons on the way to Tel Aviv? As part of the first wave return ?
 
Just give up aleks. This is obviously left-wing trolling. (The only thing I hate more than right-wing trolling.) Seriously the OP was named ClintonForever. Do you really expect a serious discussion from ClintonForever. I think it would be best that any non diehard conservatives and liberals left this thread and ignored obvious political flamebait. The lefties will always hate reagan and the righties will always hail him as a god. Both sides will keep playing their political shell games until enough intelligent people get up and leave and personally I don't think that will ever happen. So don't try to win over the political lapdogs, just ignore them and move on with your life.

There is no hate for Reagan here (well, with most people, then again those people aren't part of what I will continue on about), simply Historical reflection in an academic manner. That's kinda the whole purpose of the site.
 
"You can be thankful for these Administrations that you have the liberty to inhabit your Left-Wing fantasy land."

By this I meant that a Soviet victory was avoided...something that seemed all too likely about 1977 or so.

Look I'm not looking for a fight here, just defending Reagan's memory against some of the gratuitous insults that seemed to be being aired.

That's me finished on this thread.

;)
 
I was always under the impression that you could bomb or attack a place without a nuclear weapon. Worse, I believed war could have been conducted with good ol' infantry, air power, and naval forces. Glad the page and half or so of this thread set me straight.
 
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