14 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Yes, because the guy was a certifiable alzheimers patient in his second term, yet to utter a bad word about him is heresy in your circles. This on the heels of your last God who certifiably spoke at a 4th-grade level.

I honestly don't even get the point of the clip. He speaks the truth and touches on things many of us have talked about here before.

He was diagnosed in 1994. Six years after he left office.

But I can't wait for the statements made by people years later that they saw signs in 1987...when we was busy beating the Soviets.

3 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

He was diagnosed in 1994. Six years after he left office.

But I can't wait for the statements made by people years later that they saw signs in 1987...when we was busy beating the Soviets.

He was clearly losing it during that second term. It's well-established that aides had to cover for him.

Also, "Reagan defeated the Soviet Union" is one of my favorite Republican fairy tales.

4 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

He was clearly losing it during that second term. It's well-established that aides had to cover for him.

Also, "Reagan defeated the Soviet Union" is one of my favorite Republican fairy tales.

Yeah, other than the part where it's a fact. But keep living in dream world. The Reagan administration broke the Soviet economy by escalating the arms race while simultaneously working with the Saudis to drive down the price of oil. The USSR was reeling from Afghanistan, and that combo broke them.

But just keep learning your new history where none of this happened. 

4 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Yeah, other than the part where it's a fact. But keep living in dream world. The Reagan administration broke the Soviet economy by escalating the arms race while simultaneously working with the Saudis to drive down the price of oil. The USSR was reeling from Afghanistan, and that combo broke them.

But just keep learning your new history where none of this happened. 

Are you absolutely sure that wasn't Carter, I heard he did some great things.

8 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Yeah, other than the part where it's a fact. But keep living in dream world. The Reagan administration broke the Soviet economy by escalating the arms race while simultaneously working with the Saudis to drive down the price of oil. The USSR was reeling from Afghanistan, and that combo broke them.

But just keep learning your new history where none of this happened. 

 

False. The Soviet Union collapsed largely under the weight of its own deficiencies, because Communism sucks. You can partially attribute it to economic and political isolation by the West, but that had been going on for decades. Afghanistan was also a huge self-inflicted woundthat can't be downplayed. The arms race is another thing that had been going on for decades but was largely immaterial to their ultimate demise. You can't solely attribute that to Reagan. For a while, Mutually Assured Desturction made it clear that neither side really had an upper hand in any nuclear conflict.

This is not "new history." This has generally been consensus among historians for decades. You just don't like it because it tears down your hero.

4 minutes ago, GreenReaper said:

Are you absolutely sure that wasn't Carter, I heard he did some great things.

 

It wasn't any single person. It was the combined result of a half-century of internal and external pressures.

9 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

False. The Soviet Union collapsed largely under the weight of its own deficiencies, because Communism sucks. You can partially attribute it to economic and political isolation by the West, but that had been going on for decades. Afghanistan was also a huge self-inflicted woundthat can't be downplayed. The arms race is another thing that had been going on for decades but was largely immaterial to their ultimate demise. You can't solely attribute that to Reagan. For a while, Mutually Assured Desturction made it clear that neither side really had an upper hand in any nuclear conflict.

This is not "new history." This has generally been consensus among historians for decades. You just don't like it because it tears down your hero.

Right, so we're just gonna ignore facts. Cool cool.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

Gee, what happened in 1980?

Golly, what happened to the price of oil in the mid 1980s?

https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-ussr-collapse

Quote

 

Shortly after that in 1986, William Casey, then Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, went to Saudi Arabia. According to Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser Richard Allen, Casey negotiated with King Fahd what was to occur next. For the six previous years, the Saudi government has been restraining oil prices, sharply decreasing their petroleum extraction; but after Casey returned, in September 1985, Saudi Arabia started rapidly increasing its extraction – even though the prices were still low!

 

In four months, Saudi extraction rose from two million to 10 million barrels a day, and prices plummeted from $32 a barrel to $10. For the USSR’s economy - already accustomed to exorbitant incomes from its oil, this was a death blow. in 1986 alone, the USSR lost more than $20 billion (approximately 7.5% of the USSR’s annual income), and it already had a budget deficit.

But Saudi Arabia’s economy was also punished because of the low prices! Why did they do it? Allen’s opinion is that Casey offered the sheiks financial reparations in exchange for the move; this opinion is backed up by the fact that in 1986, 80% of Saudi oil was sold through Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, and Chevron – all American companies.

The Soviet Union plunged into recession following the 1985-1986 oil crisis. It was enough for the already unhealthy, command-style Soviet economy to crumble. In 1986, USSR’s external loans were about $30 billion; by 1989 they had reached $50 billion. 

 

Those damn facts again...always killing a liberal idiot's narrative

28 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Right, so we're just gonna ignore facts. Cool cool.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget

Gee, what happened in 1980?

Golly, what happened to the price of oil in the mid 1980s?

https://www.rbth.com/history/331825-saudi-arabia-oil-crisis-ussr-collapse

Yeah, let's focus on a single factor because it makes your boy look good. I'm sure nothing else was relevant, and I'm sure that this wasn't part of the culmination of a decades-long campaign to wreck the Soviet economy, dating back to Truman.

And now the personal insults come out two posts in, the true mark of a weak-minded indidividual. Good job, conservative dolt.

11 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

Yeah, let's focus on a single factor because it makes your boy look good. I'm sure nothing else was relevant, and I'm sure that this wasn't part of the culmination of a decades-long campaign to wreck the Soviet economy, dating back to Truman.

And now the personal insults come out two posts in, the true mark of a weak-minded indidividual. Good job, conservative dolt.

LOL

1 minute ago, mikemack8 said:

LOL

 

Go on...

4 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

Yeah, let's focus on a single factor because it makes your boy look good. I'm sure nothing else was relevant, and I'm sure that this wasn't merely the culmination of a decades-long campaign to wreck the Soviet economy dating back to Truman.

And now the personal insults come out two posts in, the true mark of a weak-minded indidividual. Good job, conservative dolt.

At least I'm being called a conservative again. I got that going for me. Pro tip -- if you're gonna call someone a dolt, maybe spell individual correctly. It helps. But if you actually want to debate this -- I'm game.

Of course it was the culmination of policies since 1945, and each President tried their own approach. The point is Reagan's approach actually worked in the situation he inherited, and it was undeniably a massive change in direction from what came before because it focused on actually defeating the Soviets as opposed to limiting their expansion. How? Let's review:

Truman -- Containment. Truman pioneered dealing with the USSR, and he and Acheson focused on their containment strategy to keep Communism where it was. I would argue this was somewhat of a wasted opportunity, as we could have exploited US nuclear hegemony prior to 1949. Instead, China formally fell to Communists (really, this was happening no matter what), and the policy in Korea was muddled at best. But all in all, if you accept China was already gone, Truman mainly succeeding in containing Communism but never focused on trying to defeat it. 

Eisenhower -- Brinksmanship. This was really more Dulles, and I never thought he got the credit he deserved for finding a way to counter Soviet expansionism while reducing our use of conventional forces. But...when push came to shove in Hungary, Cuba, etc. we didn't follow through since it was a bluff. So the Eisenhower era did lead to relative peace with a lack of actual ground conflict, but there were really territorial losses. 

Kennedy/Johnson -- Flexible Response. Now this was a catastrophe. JFK decides brinksmanship and the reliance on MAD is immoral/impractical, and he decides that instead the US should focus on proportional responses to communist aggression. While he passes his first test with the CMC (thanks mainly to his advisors like McNamara), he begins deploying conventional ground forces as advisors to South Vietnam. Johnson inherits this plan and, well, we know what transpired. 

Nixon/Ford -- Detente and Realpolitik -- Nixon and Kissinger looked to reduce arms spending and tensions with the Soviets through arms reduction treaties and other deals, while trying to apply pressure by opening up China. The China strategy by Kissinger was brilliant, and it might have worked over the long-term, but they purposely reduced pressure on the Soviet economy by negotiating arms reduction.

Carter -- who the hell knows -- I mean, I guess he kinda continued detente?

Reagan was unique in that he was the 1st President to effectively have the elimination of the Soviet Union as part of his stated policy. No President from Truman to Carter aspired to anything greater than containing the Soviets and effectively learning to live with them. It's why Reagan's Evil Empire speech was so shocking and such a massive shift in direction (and criticized so heavily on the left). Now, the Soviets put themselves in the position to be broken thanks to their idiocy in Afghanistan (and the fundamental weakness of their economy versus ours), but Reagan poured gas on the fire.

44 minutes ago, GreenReaper said:

Are you absolutely sure that wasn't Carter, I heard he did some great things.

Carter ended detente when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.    Which is the decision that really doomed the USSR…

1 minute ago, Dave Moss said:

Carter ended detente when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.    Which is the decision that really doomed the USSR…

I honestly don't know what he did between the invasion at the end of 1979 and leaving office in January 1981, other than boycotting the Olympics? Feels like that whole period is consumed with Iran and hostages.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

I honestly don't know what he did between the invasion at the end of 1979 and leaving office in January 1981, other than boycotting the Olympics? Feels like that whole period is consumed with Iran and hostages.

He shook his fist a lot I’ll bet.  

1 minute ago, Dave Moss said:

He shook his fist a lot I’ll bet.  

I think maybe he halted grain sales? Just don't remember much action beyong rhetoric, but it's the Cold War Presidency I studied the least.

Brzezinski (Mika’s dad) was definitely a Cold Warrior.  He wasn’t backing down with the Soviets.

16 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

At least I'm being called a conservative again. I got that going for me. Pro tip -- if you're gonna call someone a dolt, maybe spell individual correctly. It helps. But if you actually want to debate this -- I'm game.

Of course it was the culmination of policies since 1945, and each President tried their own approach. The point is Reagan's approach actually worked in the situation he inherited, and it was undeniably a massive change in direction from what came before because it focused on actually defeating the Soviets as opposed to limiting their expansion. How? Let's review:

Truman -- Containment. Truman pioneered dealing with the USSR, and he and Acheson focused on their containment strategy to keep Communism where it was. I would argue this was somewhat of a wasted opportunity, as we could have exploited US nuclear hegemony prior to 1949. Instead, China formally fell to Communists (really, this was happening no matter what), and the policy in Korea was muddled at best. But all in all, if you accept China was already gone, Truman mainly succeeding in containing Communism but never focused on trying to defeat it. 

Eisenhower -- Brinksmanship. This was really more Dulles, and I never thought he got the credit he deserved for finding a way to counter Soviet expansionism while reducing our use of conventional forces. But...when push came to shove in Hungary, Cuba, etc. we didn't follow through since it was a bluff. So the Eisenhower era did lead to relative peace with a lack of actual ground conflict, but there were really territorial losses. 

Kennedy/Johnson -- Flexible Response. Now this was a catastrophe. JFK decides brinksmanship and the reliance on MAD is immoral/impractical, and he decides that instead the US should focus on proportional responses to communist aggression. While he passes his first test with the CMC (thanks mainly to his advisors like McNamara), he begins deploying conventional ground forces as advisors to South Vietnam. Johnson inherits this plan and, well, we know what transpired. 

Nixon/Ford -- Detente and Realpolitik -- Nixon and Kissinger looked to reduce arms spending and tensions with the Soviets through arms reduction treaties and other deals, while trying to apply pressure by opening up China. The China strategy by Kissinger was brilliant, and it might have worked over the long-term, but they purposely reduced pressure on the Soviet economy by negotiating arms reduction.

Carter -- who the hell knows -- I mean, I guess he kinda continued detente?

Reagan was unique in that he was the 1st President to effectively have the elimination of the Soviet Union as part of his stated policy. No President from Truman to Carter aspired to anything greater than containing the Soviets and effectively learning to live with them. It's why Reagan's Evil Empire speech was so shocking and such a massive shift in direction (and criticized so heavily on the left). Now, the Soviets put themselves in the position to be broken thanks to their idiocy in Afghanistan (and the fundamental weakness of their economy versus ours), but Reagan poured gas on the fire.

 

Ok, that's a pretty good breakdown, and I appreciate it. Certainly not something a dolt would say, and it was actually helpful.

There was a definitive shift in the rhetoric that Reagan used, and I can't say that this had no effect, if only psychological, on the sense within the USSR that the party was over. When you combine that with failure in Afghanistnan, I'm sure it added to the feeling of their backs being against the wall. Mostly, I feel like Reagan just gets too much credit, like he literally was this superhero who brought down the Evil Empire. He did his part, but it's not like there hadn't been this slow erosion of the Soviet state for a long time that had been impacted by the corrosive influence orf several administrations.. Ultimatley, I think Reagan's impact was more emotional than anything; he made the U.S. feel like they were winning and the Russians feel like everything was up against them. Interestingly, though,  you could see Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech as another use of Brinksmanship.

Good take on Kennedy. Flexible Response was at least a drawback from some of the more wreckless dispoaitions  of previous administrations, but I generally think that JFK's forgin policy was a disaster.

24 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

At least I'm being called a conservative again. I got that going for me. Pro tip -- if you're gonna call someone a dolt, maybe spell individual correctly.

 

The point is well-taken, but in my defense, today was the last day of school, and I started drinking early 

1 minute ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

The point us well-taken, but in my defense, today was the last day of school, and I started drinking early 

You should organize some rallies to protest being underpaid during your yearly paid three month vacation. 

He should get a job with a social media company, right Greg?

2 minutes ago, Kz! said:

You should organize some rallies to protest being underpaid during your yearly paid three month vacation. 

 

The board shifted the calendars this year, so I just barely even get two months. I'm back in mid-August 

2 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

 

Ok, that's a pretty good breakdown, and I appreciate it. Certainly not something a dolt would say, and it was actually helpful.

There was a definitive shift in the rhetoric that Reagan used, and I can't say that this had no effect, if only psychological, on the sense within the USSR that the party was over. When you combine that with failure in Afghanistnan, I'm sure it added to the feeling of their backs being against the wall. Mostly, I feel like Reagan just gets too much credit, like he literally was this superhero who brought down the Evil Empire. He did his part, but it's not like there hadn't been this slow erosion of the Soviet state for a long time that had been impacted by the corrosive influence orf several administrations.. Ultimatley, I think Reagan's impact was more emotional than anything; he made the U.S. feel like they were winning and the Russians feel like everything was up against them. Interestingly, though,  you could see Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech as another use of Brinksmanship.

Good take on Kennedy. Flexible Response was at least a drawback from some of the more wreckless dispoaitions  of previous administrations, but I generally think that JFK's forgin policy was a disaster.

JFK's entire presidency is basically an unmitigated disaster that gets glossed over because of his tragic death and the whole "Camelot" thing. Let's review:

- Bay of Pigs disaster. Somehow, history hangs this on Eisenhower, and he did develop the plan. But JFK had to approve it, and then he got cold feet and cancelled the air support. For a new, young President, then man comes out looking like a clown and Khrushchev notices

- Cuban Missile Crisis. This gets written up as JFK's crowning achievement, but...it's really thanks to guys like Sorenson and Schlesinger telling the history in a way to make JFK and RFK shine. If you read the transcripts of the Ex-Comm meetings, JFK was clueless (at one point he exclaims that putting in missiles in Cuba would be like us putting missiles in Turkey, and then someone has to tell him we HAVE missiles in Turkey) and RFK suggests sinking a US ship in Guantanamo Bay on purpose to justify an invasion (he says to sink the Maine again). McNamara is the one who really drives consensus on the blockade, and it ends because we ended up trading missiles in Turkey. 

- Vietnam. Kinda speaks for itself.

- Civil Rights. The truth is...he did basically nothing. LBJ was the one who accomplished this, and everyone for some reason acts like he continued plans initiated by JFK. JFK talked but never actually did much.

The guy is constantly ranked as a top 10 president when in reality he is one of the 10 worst.

The key part of the Cuban Missile Crisis resolution is the secret agreement that the public didn’t know about - the Soviets removing their missiles in Cuba in exchange for the U.S. removing theirs in Turkey.

Ya'll are kind of off-track here.  Reagan was debatably on his way to dementia during his second term.  He was certainly more on his way than Biden, who has a camera in his face about 1000x more often than Reagan ever did.

https://www.history.com/news/reagan-health-25th-amendment

Quote

 

Howard H. Baker Jr. was just starting his job as Reagan’s chief of staff in 1987 when he asked two aides to investigate how the Iran-Contra scandal was affecting the White House. James Cannon, the aide who wrote the memo about the investigation, reported back that the place was in chaos.

The staff "told stories about how inattentive and inept the president was,” Cannon recalled to journalists Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus in Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988. "He was lazy; he wasn't interested in the job. They said he wouldn't read the papers they gave him—even short position papers and documents. They said he wouldn't come over to work—all he wanted to do was to watch movies and television at the residence.”

 

The funny thing is, that description sounds like Trump, except Trump would binge on cable news because he was demented AND mentally ill.

13 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

JFK's entire presidency is basically an unmitigated disaster that gets glossed over because of his tragic death and the whole "Camelot" thing. Let's review:

- Bay of Pigs disaster. Somehow, history hangs this on Eisenhower, and he did develop the plan. But JFK had to approve it, and then he got cold feet and cancelled the air support. For a new, young President, then man comes out looking like a clown and Khrushchev notices

- Cuban Missile Crisis. This gets written up as JFK's crowning achievement, but...it's really thanks to guys like Sorenson and Schlesinger telling the history in a way to make JFK and RFK shine. If you read the transcripts of the Ex-Comm meetings, JFK was clueless (at one point he exclaims that putting in missiles in Cuba would be like us putting missiles in Turkey, and then someone has to tell him we HAVE missiles in Turkey) and RFK suggests sinking a US ship in Guantanamo Bay on purpose to justify an invasion (he says to sink the Maine again). McNamara is the one who really drives consensus on the blockade, and it ends because we ended up trading missiles in Turkey. 

- Vietnam. Kinda speaks for itself.

- Civil Rights. The truth is...he did basically nothing. LBJ was the one who accomplished this, and everyone for some reason acts like he continued plans initiated by JFK. JFK talked but never actually did much.

The guy is constantly ranked as a top 10 president when in reality he is one of the 10 worst.

 

There's a lot here that I just don't have the time to get into, but it's certainly a mixed bag with JFK at best, and yes, a lot of it does get glossed over, I think largely due to the martyrdom aspect which is somewhat predictable.

A lot of people bore responsibility for Bay of Pigs, JFK being chief among them, but I'd really like to go back and review my notes for this, because I did look into a lot the FRUS materials when prepping for my thesis. JFK does often  come off as a guy who doesn't know what's going on, which I guess is somewhat understandable given that he had just taken office, but the trend continues throughout his presidency. One thing I remember, though, is there being a terrible lack of coordination between the JCS and Dept. of State on now the operation was going to be carried out. The two teams were essentially isolated from one another and the failures in communication continued through the operation itself. It was an all-around failure.

I think you have to give him some credit for wanting to do something about civil rights, but the truth is that he didn't have the balls to do it, just like pulling out of South Vietnam. Ultimately, I think top-10 is too high but bottom-10 is too low. It's hard to rank him since he was only in office for less than three years.he had a lot of unfinished business. He's sort of unranked in my mind, but he did change the tenor or politics in the country that I think was mostly positive. And while I do think he bears grave responsibility for basically leaving the plan on LBJs desk that led to the ultimate quagmire in Vietnam, I don't think he would've gotten so entrenched to the point of having 500,000 ground troops over there.