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LeopoldBloom The debacle in Afghanistan didn't help either.
That debacle wouldn't have happened without Reagan's support to fund the Afghan resistance.
It was President Reagan who authorized the shipments of the Stinger missile, which was the turning point by shooting down Soviet helicopters and aircraft. (The Joint Chiefs were against it.)
Gorbachev was a communist. He believed that a restructing of the Soviet economy was needed to make it more efficient.
The Soviet Union, the world's biggest producer of steel, raw materails, fuel and energy, has shortfalls in them due to wasteful or inefficient use. One of the biggest producers of grain for food, it neverless has to buy millions of tons of grain a year for fodder. We have the largest number of doctors and hospital beds per thousand of the population and, at the same time, there are glaring shortcomings in our health services. Our rockets can find Halley's comet and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technological triumphs is an obvious lack of effeciency in using scientific achivements for economic needs, and many Soviet households appliances are of poor quality.
But even as late as 1987 he was still in denial about the U.S. military buildup.
Gorbachev knew, but was loathe to admit it, that restructuring the Soviet economy would be extremely difficult without reducing Soviet military spending.
As far as United States foreign policy is concerned, it is based on at least two delusions. The first is the belief that the economic system of the Soviet Union is about to crumble and that the USSR will not succeed in restructuring. The second is calculated on Western superiority in equipment and technology and, eventually, in the military field. These illusions nourish a policy geared toward exhausting socialism through the arm race.
Source:
Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev. pp. 7, 206.
Did Reagan deserve all the credit for winning the Cold War? Of course not.
Rep. Charlie Wilson, a Democrat in rural Texas, was the driving force in Congress to help the Afghans.
We had great partners in NATO leaders at the time: Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Brian Mulroney and others.
There was support in Congress for the increased military spending, especially a revitalization of the U.S. Navy. John Lehman was a fantastic Secretary of the Navy.
