Ripsnort: When GORBACHEV was appointed secretary general in 1985, the USSR could no longer keep up financing the arms race (accelerated, in a bluff, by the Reagan administration)
That is more of a western legend than the real case. Curiously, the afghan peasants have a similar legend that it was them who destroyed the Soviet Union.
There is no basis for believing that Soviet Union accelerated the arms race at all, let alone beyong its ability to survive. Cold War was not a real war - just an armed standoff. Soviet Army was run on the cheap and in my personal opinion it would have proved totally inadequate in a real conflict.
Most of the soviet reality, including the army, was a total fake.
Soviet Union was slowly degrading economically as any socialist country does but it could have continued doing so for many more decades if Gorbachev did not try his policy changes. I am pretty sure that Reagan or foreign politics was the last thing on his mind.
If anything, the Reagan's embargoes and saber-rattling caused more support for the communist government from the population - most of whom believed that the Berlin Wall was a good thing protecting socialist Germany from incursions.
It was only after the Glasnost - which was nothing more than liberalisation of the media - that people realised that NATO is not planning to attack their country. That seriously weakened their support for the party government.
As Goering said, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That's easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked..."
As for what would Reagan has done after 9/11, if we take the Lebanon experience as a rough guide, he would have bombed some village allegedely full of terrorists and then withdrawn the US troops from Saudi Arabia like OBL requested and that would have been the end of it.
That is of course if he did not withdraw the troops from SA after the first WTC bombing or the Cole bombing.
miko
