Comments on: Reagan Vs. Buckley – An Urgent Lesson

By: mlindroo

mlindroo — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:21:35 +0000

Small clarification to my previous message:

Sinz54 originally wrote that [the Soviets-]
: figured that by raping the world's industrial and
: agricultural might, they could keep themselves in
: power indefinitely.

I responded:
> But the USSR already *had* enormous natural
> resources and most of its export revenues came from
> this sector!

Obviously, the Soviets actually had to import agricultural products due to their ineffectual agricultural policies. But my point regarding natural resources still stands: Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua are not exactly post-WW II Germany in terms of industrial/agricultural potential or know-how.

: Under Carter, the USSR seemed to be on a real roll.

"Seemed" is the key word.

Surely you agree with me that the Soviet threat of world domination wasn't quite as big as some believed in the mid-1970s?

MARCU$

By: midcon

midcon — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 10:40:42 +0000

It is conceivable that without Reagan, the USSR may have already been on the path to ultimate failure. However, it is clear that U.S. hastened that failure and without it, the USSR would have been more able to wreak mischief in many other parts of the world. As long as there was a strong opposition (the U.S.) USSR was obligated to devote significant resources to oppose the U.S. “threat.” To debate anything further, such as whether or not a single individual (Reagan) was responsible, while interesting, is pointless.Bottom is, that the U.S. was at a minimum a contributing factor in the dissolution of the Soviet emprire. That should be a position everyone can accept. Call it a moderate position if you will.

By: mlindroo

mlindroo — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:44:04 +0000

Sinz54 wrote:

: The Soviet goal was world conquest. They knew their
: system had serious structural problems, but they
: figured that by raping the world's industrial and
: agricultural might, they could keep themselves in
: power indefinitely.

But the USSR already *had* enormous natural resources and most of its export revenues came from this sector! What on Earth makes you think that their vast problems in e.g. agriculture would have been reduced by annexing further satellite states?? After all, it seems one major reason for the Soviet economic decline was that their system started out as complex and inefficient but grew completely unmanageable as the Soviet empire kept growing and evolving. More and more complex disaggregation of control figures (plan targets) and factory inputs were required, and also more communication between the enterprises and the planning ministries, and as the number of enterprises, trusts, and ministries multiplied, the Soviet economy started to stagnate. The vast military sector had the same problem (see previous paragraphs). Interestingly, many of these problems are quite comparable to those of the Roman Empire, i.e. the "system" becomes too large, complex, expensive and inefficient and in the end nobody is able to control it.
---
I am saying that Reagan was not necessary. The USSR could easily have been contained using the policies of the early 1970s as it primarily destroyed itself in the end. It would have taken a bit longer with Ford or Carter as POTUS, but the idea that a communist USSR could have achieved real and lasting world domination during the 1980s is sheer fiction.

MARCU$

By: mlindroo

mlindroo — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:42:03 +0000

Sinz54,

In retrospect, it seems both left wing doves and conservative hawks in the West exaggerated different capabilities of the Soviet system. You ridicule some liberal economists and that's fair enough, but what about the assessment of the USSR's military capabilities?

'The Soviet Union has been busy. Theyve been busy in terms of their level of effort; theyve been busy in terms of the actual weapons theyve been producing; theyve been busy in terms of expanding production rates; theyve been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; theyve been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, theyve been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. Theyre purposeful about what theyre doing.'

Donald Rumsfeld, 1976

The CIA strongly disagreed with this, claiming that the Soviet economy was actually decaying. Nonetheless, Rumsfeld and Cheney managed to convince President Ford to set up an independent Team B to second guess the NIE assessment. Their now declassified report grossly exaggerates the actual military capabilities of the Soviet political system. E.g. the authors did not know if the Soviets had acoustic means of picking up American submarines since they could not find any evidence. So they imply the Soviets have or are developing new advanced non-acoustic means of making the American submarine fleet vulnerable despite a total lack of evidence for it *and* despite the fact even the U.S. Navy (far ahead in acoustic technology) experts did not think it was technologically feasible! It was claimed that the Soviets did not believe in the M.A.D. doctrine, and that thanks to their large and expanding Gross National Product they would have 500 Backfire bombers and other advanced systems in place by 1984. Lots of predictions like that are made in this report, and almost all of them proved to be wildly off the mark. The USSR certainly was a military superpower in the 1960s and 70s, but nowhere near as dangerous as Rumsfeld & co. argued.
----
In retrospect, it seems the Soviet military expansion of the 1970s was in fact mostly driven by the inertia of their military industrial complex and the lack of mechanisms to contain the countrys military programs. This does not of course mean the USSR had benign intentions and did want to compete with the U.S., but there is no evidence the Soviets had a plan or even the capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Yet the Cheney / Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz view of the USSR's military capabilities -- now almost entirely discredited -- certainly proved highly influential.

MARCU$

By: Brutus1776

Brutus1776 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:46:34 +0000

Sinz54: oh I agree wholeheartedly.

Cforchange: I think you are bordering a fallacious argument, in that, it is either moderate reasonists vs. religious fundamentalists. Religious cooks are problematic, I think we can all agree to that; but, that being said, believing that we can just seperate religion out of politics is problematic. We have to remember that religion plays an important role in individual lives, and communities, and is inherently intertwined in our politicking (whether we know it or do not recognize it). Burke said we are religious animals, Aristotle, we are political animals. Thus, not likely a debate to end soon.

Temper religion? Yes, nobody is advocating living strictly by the Bible, Sharia, etc. Tempering religion does not mean throwing it under the rug. As for Mr. Buckley, I would call your attention to "God and Man at Yale" and the influence of Buckley's Catholicism in his political outlook (not to mention his admiration, and the influence on he had on Buckley, of Eric Voergelin).

By: Cforchange

Cforchange — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:22:08 +0000

Didn’t WFB leave religion out of politics? Wasn’t he clear that the “religous kooks” can be problematic? I remember my father would put life on pause to hear from WFB and I know he wouldn’t admire anyone that didn’t know how to temper religion.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:02:05 +0000

Brutus1776 asks: "Was the Soviet Union decaying before Reagan got into office?"

Yes. So were the decadent Arab oil states. But the point I tried to make, is that this decay can even be temporarily reversed, if worldwide economic inflation vastly increases demand for commodities sold by these nations. This was a point that was largely neglected by liberals at the time; their tolerance of the root causes of inflation (cf. John Kenneth Galbraith) was weakening America *geopolitically* as well as economically.

Today, the developed world (including the U.S.) is a net importer of many commodities; Russia and the Third World are exporters of commodities. The balance of political power between these blocs shifts back and forth with the inflation rate.

The best thing that Volcker and Reagan did together, was restart strong *non-inflationary* growth in America. (While Thatcher did the same thing in Britain.) The result was that worldwide commodity prices collapsed. That, more than Reagan's military buildup, is what shifted the world balance of power back toward the West.

Incidentally, it may also have ignited the Gulf War of 1991 (which gave the U.S. a convenient opportunity to demonstate its military might over Soviet-supplied armies). Saddam had borrowed heavily from Kuwait to finance his war with Iran. When oil prices collapsed in the 1980s due to ebbing inflation, Saddam found himself unable to pay back his debts to Kuwait. So, like any other common gangster, he just pulled out his gun and shot Kuwait to death. The U.S. responded militarily, and the world was treated to a spectacle of the U.S. militarily clobbering Soviet-supplied Iraqi armies.

By: Brutus1776

Brutus1776 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:38:14 +0000

Oh wow, well I see the topic has digressed significantly from Toms main point Ill proceed anyway. Good Tom, you never fail to impress as our friend Bulldoglover100 never fails to disappoint. The relationship between both William Buckley and Ronald Reagan was extraordinary, and the best elucidation of this is in Buckleys The Reagan I Knew. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at one of the Grove retreats. There were three pillars of the Conservative movement: Goldwater, Reagan and Buckley (of the movement politically, not intellectually for the most part). Reagan was the Corinthian pillar, maintaining strength to hold the movement while ornately decorated and aesthetically pleasing. He articulated our values beautifully, to persuade the people to come hither. Buckley was much like an Ionic pillar, not extraordinarily decorated (with his bad tie knots, and his slouching posture), but he was solid and wise. He brought the intellectual movement from hiding, and into the spotlight. (Any fellow travelers will appreciate the metaphors At any rate, I wonder, dear Tom, how you would have taken to your Teddy? Upon his return from Africa and Rhino hunting ironically enough, he found a Republican party that didnt suit him, and he started the Bull Moose Party to set them straight. I of course am not advocating this, but as Teddy is a favorite among many Republicans, I find it an interesting parallel to our times today. I owe this analyses to my esteemed professor, Dr. Hartlaub: imagine the impact of factions on our republic (or in this case, our movement) as you would the shattering of a car window. Car windows are designed to shatter into minute fragments so as to leave the driver with minor scratches in the case of an accident. A thousand small cuts hurts, but if the windshield were to break into large shards, you would find yourself in the same predicament as the bad guy in the movie Ghost (Ok, so I added that last part). Either way, Buckley and Reagan acted as two poles that kept the factions of the party numerous and no one larger (significantly) than the other. Think about it, the fights that occurred within the pages of National Review or Modern Age: Rand v. Chambers, Bradford and Kendall v. Jaffa, libertarians v. conservatives, ideologues v. pragmatists, neocons v. paleocons, southern agrarians v. northeast establishment. Wow what diversity! Now, we are hurting ourselves because lets face it, we governed poorly. It speaks against those who vociferously denounce government yet ask you to elect them to rule using government. At the same time, those who were pretty content with government rule, became a bit overzealous and over-expanded well, a lot of the government. Still, in the end, ours is the movement that dominates the intellectual field these days. Anyone who believes I hold this view solely by listening to Rush or Beck will embarrass themselves by stating show; because they will show their own lack of knowledge on the topic of Conservatism and then well have to ask, why the hell are you here? Im talking about the pages of Modern Age, Commentary, National Interest, American Spectator, et cetera. As for the debate raging about the Cold War, I think history speaks for itself. Was the Soviet Union decaying before Reagan got into office? Sure, funny enough, because of many of the same institutions and beliefs that some (not all) liberals want in our country today. But did Reagan not confront the beast face to face, which was what President Obama said to do this morning (can one look face to face while bowing?). Let me phrase it differently would the Soviet Union have lived longer had it not been for Reagans policies? Therefore, he helped the USSR on its precipitous decline, and into the ash heap of history. Sinz54: damn good show below! Especially Schlesinger’s chirping.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:03:00 +0000

mlindroo: Reagan and the conservatives who backed him were aware of the USSR's troubles, and they believed (correctly) that if we pushed them hard enough, we could push them into an irreversible downward spiral. They were correct.

"The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and for the spread of civilization. The West won't contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." (Ronald Reagan, Commencement Address at University of Notre Dame, May 1981)

But this was at a time when liberals not only believed the USSR was here to stay, but that it was doing well:

"It is a vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable." (Paul Samuelson, Professor of Economics, MIT, Nobel Laureate, Economics, 1981)

"The Soviet Union is not now, nor will it be during the next decade, in the throes of a true systematic crisis, for it boasts enormous unused reserves of political and social stability that suffice to endure the deepest difficulties." (Seweryn Bialer, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, Foreign Affairs Magazine, 1982/3)

"I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street ... those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves." (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 1982)

"That the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene...One sees it in the appearance of well-being of the people on the streets...and the general aspect of restaurants, theaters, and shops... Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower." (John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor of Economics, Harvard University, 1984)

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:01:36 +0000

mlindroo: The Soviet goal was world conquest. They knew their system had serious structural problems, but they figured that by raping the world's industrial and agricultural might, they could keep themselves in power indefinitely.

Remember, they started their industrial and space programs in the 1950s by the rape of conquered Germany's technology and factories (as well as the wholesale kidnapping of some German scientists).

So the USSR, had it won the Cold War and taken over the entire Third World, would have been able to keep itself in power for a very long time.

Under Carter, the USSR seemed to be on a real roll. They had marched into Afghanistan. They took over Angola and were taking over Central America. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army had less than a 30 day supply of ammunition on the day Carter left office. The Navy had to cannibalize parts from one plane to keep another flying. And so on.

Most importantly, the Carterite inflation and so-called "energy crisis" had given nations with natural resources, like Russia and the Arab oil states, a real boost. Russia was prospering selling its coal abroad.

Inflation works against America geopolitically, since we're a net importer of so many natural resources these days.