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| IAlexN |
 Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 7:16 am Post subject: The Cold War |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 24 Nov 2009
Posts: 77
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I didn't know where to put this question, so feel free to move it.
Hi,
I need some help to answer three questions about the cold war. I have been searching around the Internet the past 3 hours without any success  . Therefore I'd really appreciate if someone could help me.
1. What caused the economical crisis in the west world, 1970-80?
2. What's the various political motives to the superpower's involvements in conflicts around the world?
3. How did the West's strong economy come to break the communist regime in the Soviet Union.
Thanks a million to whomever can help me!  |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 4:52 am Post subject: Re: The Cold War |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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| IAlexN wrote: |
I didn't know where to put this question, so feel free to move it.
Hi,
I need some help to answer three questions about the cold war. I have been searching around the Internet the past 3 hours without any success . Therefore I'd really appreciate if someone could help me.
1. What caused the economical crisis in the west world, 1970-80? |
Oil.
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2. What's the various political motives to the superpower's involvements in conflicts around the world? |
Um..... mostly oil. At least the USA. Russia doesn't really need oil, since they're already a net exporter in that area, so their efforts are more focused or trying to get other countries to pay them exhorbant prices for their fossil fuel products.
A fine example of what I mean would be a few years ago when they turned off the supply of natural gas to Ukraine in order to force Ukraine to pay them a higher price for it. Ukraine depends on natural gas in order to heat its peoples' homes in the winter so they basically agreed to a price they couldn't pay in order to get it turned back on, and now Russia is trying to put pressure on the European union to give Ukraine some loans in order to finance the sales. (And I can hardly imagine how Ukraine would be expected to repay those loans.)
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3. How did the West's strong economy come to break the communist regime in the Soviet Union.
Thanks a million to whomever can help me! |
The Communist government was never able to be as productive economically as the capitalist system in the West. It did ok in some areas, but not others. Gorbechev's program of Glasnost increased the people's desire to own consumer type goods, such as cassette players, and fancy clothes, things the USSR's economy was simply not able to produce in desirable quantities.
Basically, the Russians woke up and realized how poor they were, how poor they had been all along. It's funny to think that the same amount of wealth that had always been there would suddenly become a cause for massive discontent just because it is known that someone else has more, but that seems to be what happened. |
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| IAlexN |
| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:06 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for your answer. Greatly appreciated!  |
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| i_feel_tiredsleepy |
| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:38 pm Post subject: Re: The Cold War |
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Joined: 21 Mar 2008
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| kojax wrote: |
Um..... mostly oil. At least the USA. Russia doesn't really need oil, since they're already a net exporter in that area, so their efforts are more focused or trying to get other countries to pay them exhorbant prices for their fossil fuel products.
A fine example of what I mean would be a few years ago when they turned off the supply of natural gas to Ukraine in order to force Ukraine to pay them a higher price for it. Ukraine depends on natural gas in order to heat its peoples' homes in the winter so they basically agreed to a price they couldn't pay in order to get it turned back on, and now Russia is trying to put pressure on the European union to give Ukraine some loans in order to finance the sales. (And I can hardly imagine how Ukraine would be expected to repay those loans.)
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This may be a tad bit of an oversimplification. Russia's efforts were largely concentrated on maintaining a regional hegemony that was threatened by the American global hegemony. American's controlled the oceans, through the panama and Suez (held by the British) canals and through their far superior navy, so Russians could never hope to dominate world trade. This left the Russians with two regions they could dominate, Eastern Europe and the Mid-East. Their schism with the Maoist regime cut them off from China, and any part of East Asia not dominated by the Chinese was dominated by the Americans (Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea) and Japanese (Their own country later in the 70s and then became an economic powerhouse in Asia, still the world's 2nd largest economy).
So the major conflicts you get are the Korean war, an early attempt at the then united Soviets and Maoist to extend power in asia, which was successfully stopped by an American lead coalition. Vietnam to limit the spread of Chinese power which had already reached Cambodia and Laos, which failed. The power struggles over German allegiance, the Americans won this by bolstering Germany's confidence in the west through economic means and military (they stationed mobile nuclear weapons in Germany). The USA mostly succeeded at keeping Soviet Hegemony out of South America, it is arguable that the end of the Soviet Union was decided when they backed down during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The final big conflict between the west and the soviets was Afghanistan. Here the Soviet goal was the spread their hegemony in the mid-east even further. Iraq was headed by a pro-socialist government, while Iran was headed by the pro-western Shah dictatorship. Afghanistan was vital for the soviets to maintain their hold on the Mid-East, which was weakening as they were losing their hold on most of the Arab world. They were of course defeated by Islamic fundamentalist forces funded by Saudi Arabia and the Americans.
I would argue here that the real source of these conflicts is not oil, but the USSR trying to make a grab at regional hegemony which was continuously foiled by Western forces.
The failure of the USSR is partially due to the absurd Stalinist policies that continued into the 70s and ruined the countries economy. If Trotsky had won out against Stalin in the 50s we might still have a USSR today. |
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| Scifor Refugee |
| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:33 pm Post subject: Re: The Cold War |
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| kojax wrote: |
Um..... mostly oil. |
Oh yeah...because as we all know, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Russian-Afghan war, Cuban Missile Crisis, US invasion of Panama, US invasion of Grenada, and Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia were mostly about oil  |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject: Re: The Cold War |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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| Scifor Refugee wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
Um..... mostly oil. |
Oh yeah...because as we all know, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Russian-Afghan war, Cuban Missile Crisis, US invasion of Panama, US invasion of Grenada, and Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia were mostly about oil |
Yeah... sorry. I misunderstood the question somehow, and thought he was asking about present conflicts. Even my example of the power play with Ukraine was from the last decade.
Tiredsleepy's description was really really good. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 4:05 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
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Yeah, it is good, through geopolitical lens.
Quibble: Soviet Union was reluctant to intervene as Afghanistan spiralled into civil chaos. I'm not just projecting here - the tottering Afghan government begged and kept begging for Soviet military assistance when Islamic Revolution swept Iran & Afghanistan. I really doubt Moscow planned the Islamic Revolution! So it's not right to portray Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as simple hegemonic expansion.
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| IAlexN |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:47 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 24 Nov 2009
Posts: 77
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Thank you everyone for your answers. I really appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to answer.
However I don't think I understand everything there's to question three. The answer kojax has written doesn't make to much sense to me right.
I understand and have acknowledged the fact that Gorbechev's program of Glasnost caused people's desires to own new goods to increase, and that the USSR:s economy wasn't able to handle the quantities that was desired of these items, but how was this able to break the communist regime?
In other words, it's how the desire of consumer goods was able to the break the communist regime, that I don't understand. I apologize if this is a stupid question but I would really be grateful I someone could respond with an answer.
Thank you in advance  |
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| i_feel_tiredsleepy |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 21 Mar 2008
Posts: 1740
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| IAlexN wrote: |
Thank you everyone for your answers. I really appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to answer.
However I don't think I understand everything there's to question three. The answer kojax has written doesn't make to much sense to me right.
I understand and have acknowledged the fact that Gorbechev's program of Glasnost caused people's desires to own new goods to increase, and that the USSR:s economy wasn't able to handle the quantities that was desired of these items, but how was this able to break the communist regime?
In other words, it's how the desire of consumer goods was able to the break the communist regime, that I don't understand. I apologize if this is a stupid question but I would really be grateful I someone could respond with an answer.
Thank you in advance |
As much as it would be nice to have an easy answer like that American capitalism in the form of Rock and Roll, blue jeans, and Reaganomics toppled the Soviet Union. That would be a terrible over simplification. There were huge problems in the Soviet Union when it collapsed. Gorbachev became president because he was an agricultural scientist. Russia, despite its massive amount of land and labour base, could not feed itself. Gross bureaucratic incompetency that had developed over years of bad Soviet policy had ground their agricultural system into the ground. Most of their food was rotting on trains before it could reach the mouths it was meant to feed.
At the same time you have the catastrophic Afghan conflict going on. The soviets near the end are getting desperate and turning to mass slaughter to intimidate the local population.
Their economy had reached a point where even the most basic of services couldn't be provided. At the same time there is an opening up to the west that is allowing the local Russian population to be aware of the "higher" quality of life in Europe and America. It was just a matter of time under all these pressures for the Soviet Union to come to an end.
If you look at other communist regimes that have survived to today. Cuba has been able to improve the quality of life of its people from what it was before the revolution. People like food more than they like freedom. The Cuban regime won't collapse anytime soon. Partly because most of the economic trouble Cuba faces is due to American embargoes to begin with. You don't turn around and join the side that's been kicking dirt in your face for years.
Likewise, in N. Korea we have a complete media control and cult of personality. The regime in N. Korea has managed to successfully keep out the knowledge or belief that things are better outside their borders. They also have a much stronger control of their military and people than the Soviets had post-Stalin.
Last edited by i_feel_tiredsleepy on Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| icewendigo |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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Good question. To me its puzzling how the soviet union collapsed when North Korea still continues to struggles along even if less powerful.
I suspect that western economic warfare, bribes, amplifying/fostering corruption, infiltration using organized crime, bank/financial deals, may have played a role(if so details of any key covert program might not be revealed for decades to come), in addition to indemic corruption and systemic economic problems. |
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| IAlexN |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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Kudos to both of you for your quick replies.
I just have an additional question that just popped into my head.
It reads something like this: What implications did the sudden collapse of the communism regime in Eastern Europe have for the posterity?
Thanks |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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There's another great answer from i_feel_tiredsleepy.
#3 is begging the question IMO. "How did my impressive new Rolex watch make Mr. Ivanov divorce his wife?"
I would add that socialism had served its purpose. Remember prior to socialism Russia was a backward country of wooden ploughs and illiterate peasants. Socialism's really good for bootstrapping basic infrastructure and public services, and preparing for war. In 1931 Stalin rationalized, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must catch up in ten years, or they will crush us." Prophetically enough in 1941 those words proved crucially true, first regarding Germany and soon by the Western Allies' open debate whether to press onward to Moscow. But beyond those feats of socialism, mission creep set in.
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| kojax |
| Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:49 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 27 Mar 2007
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| IAlexN wrote: |
Thank you everyone for your answers. I really appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to answer.
However I don't think I understand everything there's to question three. The answer kojax has written doesn't make to much sense to me right.
I understand and have acknowledged the fact that Gorbechev's program of Glasnost caused people's desires to own new goods to increase, and that the USSR:s economy wasn't able to handle the quantities that was desired of these items, but how was this able to break the communist regime?
In other words, it's how the desire of consumer goods was able to the break the communist regime, that I don't understand. I apologize if this is a stupid question but I would really be grateful I someone could respond with an answer.
Thank you in advance |
The truth of politics is that even totalitarian dictatorships need to maintain some amount of goodwill with the population. I'm not sure the USSR was quite a totalitarian dictatorship, but ... I'm just saying. Even Sadaam Hussein had to throw some bones to popular will in order to stay in power.
If the people get tired of your leadership, even if it's purely emotional tiredness, it becomes more and more difficult to govern them, and then everything starts breaking down.
i_feel_tiredsleepy is still more on point than me, however. The USA is a net exporter of food. If Communists were having a hard time even getting food to their own people, well... I can imagine that the population would get very tired of that kind of incompetence. |
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| Halliday |
| Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:57 am Post subject: |
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| kojax wrote: |
The truth of politics is that even totalitarian dictatorships need to maintain some amount of goodwill with the population. I'm not sure the USSR was quite a totalitarian dictatorship, but ... I'm just saying. |
It is certainly true to say that conditions, in the USSR, eased after the death of Stalin, but I believe that a "totalitarian dictatorship" is by far the best description of the system of controls within that country.
Clearly the USSR was not a liberal democracy and the term "authoritarian" was far too mild an adjective to describe the system. |
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| Scifor Refugee |
| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Pong wrote: |
| Prophetically enough in 1941 those words proved crucially true, first regarding Germany and soon by the Western Allies' open debate whether to press onward to Moscow. But beyond those feats of socialism, mission creep set in. |
I don't think there was ever any real question about the Allies pressing on to Moscow. By the end of WWII the Russian army was by far the dominant power in Europe. If anything, most Western leaders were worried about the Russians deciding to press on to France and possibly England. |
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