Reagan

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Charlie Wilson's war was going nowhere fast until someone personally approved sending hundreds of Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen. Guess who that was?

Reagan seemed happy enough to let Casey take the truth about Iran Contra to the grave with him -- teflon perfection.

[a completely inoffensive name]

"Talking big" is sometimes what a country needs. Morale is not a variable only suited for the battlefield. Of course every president touched on the USSR they were the proverbial elephant in the room but Reagan pushed them to a forefront that had not been seen since Kennedy.

You mean he was aggressive to the point of foolishness. I like that you brought up Kennedy, since he was big headed when it came to "talking big" as well, almost to the point he was willing to wage a nuclear holocaust over little Cuba. If it wasn't for some key background players and a smart judgment call by a USSR submarine captain, we would all not be alive today. The same thing occurs with Kennedy however regarding the PR machine, the US "won" (really they made a compromise for Soviet removal of nukes in Cuba in exchange for removal of US nukes in Turkey) and no one even thinks twice about Kennedy being one of the good ones who stared at the abyss of Communism and got the abyss to blink. I weep for the future that could have been if that damn U-2 spy plane had not been shot down when Eisenhower was finally managing to get traction on peace talks with the USSR after 5+ years of meetings and communication.

While Wilson has become the figurehead, the funding is mainly the work of Pakistan and a small backwater group known as neo-conservatives in the USA. Without them Wilson still would've been doing lines of coke off of giant tits (A noble pursuit in itself)

Neo-conservatives were not small or backwater, neo-conservatives were the dominant faction in the Republican Party since Nixon began implementing the Southern Strategy on an organized scale. In fact if I remember correctly, the support in Congress for increased funding to the program were very bipartisan.

I never gave Reagan credit for soley defeating the reds I merley give him credit for galvininzing the west, making sure the US came out as top dog when the dust settled and making sure everyone knew America had WON.

How did we win? Simply because they lost? They brought collapse on their own accord. It was the actions of Gorbachev and his reforms that gave satellites and republics within the USSR the boldness to break off under the new wave of change brought about by Gorbachev. It's like saying that in a fight between two people (A and B) B manages to swing at A, misses, ends up hitting the wall with his hand and falls to the ground writhing in pain and thus A "won".

You miss the point. The point is not; Reagan did nothing to further America socially (he didn't) or that he stuck to conservative spending principles (God no). Neither of those things are what makes Reagan special. Reagan is special because he grabbed a faltering USSR held up its body and said "AMERICA DID THIS BECAUSE WE ARE AWESOME" and that is what this country needed. Ever since Nixon the country had been mired in a funk. Reagan reinspired people and that's all that matters. He doesn't need anything else.

Nixon was a much needed lesson for the public that they were losing control of their own government and even better, the election of Carter highlights inherent flaws the American system still has to this day since even when the public attempted to take back control with an outsider, the establishment went out of their way to not work with the outsider thus frustrating the public's wishes even more. Nixon and Carter should have brought about reforms from the American public's discontent with the structure of government that prevents it from listening to the public's wants to show that internal strife in America brings about progress and self improvement while the later reforms in the USSR brought about self destruction. Instead we get a guy who sweet talks everyone and tells us all that we are still special, we are still the best and perfect in every way and that simply because other people are doing worse then us we are crushing them. No, Reagan was not what the country needed. America did not need a pep talk, America needed to look at itself in the mirror and ask itself why is my government not responding to us? Reagan blew off the entire subject by saying government just fails at everything and we need less of it to be even more amazing, except for the military, keep expanding that.

All I need to say is health care. Our health care is broken. It doesn't cover everyone adequately if at all. We pay more of our GDP on health care then every other Western industrialized country with results worse then them. But we can barely get anything done to improve it except for this latest, watered down bill because the older public still believes that our system is still the best and that all the other countries in Europe are backwater soviet satellites rife with Socialism and that we need as little meddling with the system as possible in order to keep it working. Thanks Reagan. Now we have an entire generation that will believe we are the best in the world until they die or the bridge they drive across everyday crumbles beneath them due to budget cuts to the infrastructure upkeep (you know, small government is best that way they would have spent my tax dollars on death panels anyway).

You don't need to be able to gain a victory You need to be able to know how to use the victory. You need to see the forest from the trees.

Carter and Nixon could never do that. They were way to mired in being mere politicians.

Then the 90s happened and America went awesome.

Who are we using the victory against? The enemies are gone. It's not like we have enemies just lined up in a row and by the USSR falling we can say the nation next in line "You next!". Our relationship with China has been improving since the early 80s, when trade began opening up slowly then more rapidly.

Also, Nixon, yes. Carter, no.

Nixon was lucky with timing, Mao saw the writing on the wall and the internal damage he had caused the sino-soviet shift has more due with the Chineese worry that the USSR would gain to much of the upper hand in the relationship. Thus a more independent China needed.

Nixon was lucky with the timing yes, but he exploited the timing. I'm not saying he built up the rift single handily, but he pushed the snow ball down the hill. Nixon got in there, he "opened" China, he visited them, he created an entire foreign policy around the riff. Reagan made speeches and gave money to rebels then saw the country collapse and took credit.

ACIN:

Nixon's effort to "open" China was a brilliant move, but the break in Sino-Soviet relations went back to Kruschev. Kruschev's split with Mao was almost certainly a product of his need to distance himself from Daughasvili (sp?), with whom Mao had worked well. None of these events occur in isolation.

Reagan's efforts did indeed increase pressure on the USSR, mostly as a result of Russian paranoia -- "collective security," what a pipe-dream doctrine -- but the flaws in the Soviet system went back decades and Reagan was certainly not the only U.S. President trying to use that to win the Cold War. I suspect that both leaders at Rekjavik had more of an impact than anything else.

Reagan's handling of the Middle East was also far too "short-term" in its outlook. Actions that seemed just at the time have had ramifications decades later.

See what I just said above. Also, I suspect that when Reagan and Gorbachev met, Reagan saw the instability and knew all he had to do was made more speeches and wait a bit then take credit.

In regards to the Middle East, every president from Truman to Obama has mishandled the Middle East (so far), so I don't give him too much flak for that.

Charlie Wilson's war was going nowhere fast until someone personally approved sending hundreds of Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen. Guess who that was?

Congress. Can't send stingers without monetary funding.

It takes a master in ideological gymnastics to try and separate Reagan from the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.

What can I say, I learned a master who managed to separate Reagan from the Contra affair.

EDIT: The "proof" of Reagan's entering of the Afghanistan funding project is "National Security Decision Directive 166", which is just taken for granted in the website you posted. The article itself is just a reprinting of a Washington Post article from 1992. When I attempted to read 166 for myself I came across this website (first on google actually) http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/index.html which lists all of Reagan's National Security Decision Directives. However I could not read 166, why? Because: ** - 2 asterisks - the document has not been reviewed for release or release has been denied in full

But then again, none of that matters anyway because the article itself clearly states:
"Already under pressure from Congress and conservative activists to expand its support to the mujaheddin, the Reagan administration moved in response to this intelligence to open up its high-technology arsenal to aid the Afghan rebels."

EDIT 2: Found another website that seems to have a lot of research put into the question we are asking. http://www12.georgetown.edu/students...20Missiles.htm
Titled What were policymakers’ and intelligence services’ respective roles in the decision to deploy Stinger Missiles to the anticommunist Afghan mujahedin during the rebels’ struggle with the Soviet Union? it says this:

"After a series of interagency meetings, National Security Decision Directive 166, titled ‘Expanded U.S. Aid to Afghan Guerillas’, was signed by President Reagan in March, 1985. NSDD-166 redefined the United States’ goals in Afghanistan according to the ambitions of Casey and other government officials."

So it seems that Reagan's role...was that he signed a paper after having pressure put on him for quite some time. And that his "orders" were just the wishes of people actually involved simply spoken through a position with more power then they had.

[Xiahou]

Good president? Sure. That doesn't mean he was perfect though.

Growing up, yes. Now? No. He had many qualities that I loathe.

Up until college, I was convinced that Reagan was literally retarded- based on what I'd seen on TV and heard from my family. It was much later when I realized he was actually quite savvy.

[PanzerJaeger]

EDIT: The "proof" of Reagan's entering of the Afghanistan funding project is "National Security Decision Directive 166", which is just taken for granted in the website you posted. The article itself is just a reprinting of a Washington Post article from 1992. When I attempted to read 166 for myself I came across this website (first on google actually) http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/index.html which lists all of Reagan's National Security Decision Directives. However I could not read 166, why? Because: ** - 2 asterisks - the document has not been reviewed for release or release has been denied in full

But then again, none of that matters anyway because the article itself clearly states:
"Already under pressure from Congress and conservative activists to expand its support to the mujaheddin, the Reagan administration moved in response to this intelligence to open up its high-technology arsenal to aid the Afghan rebels."

EDIT 2: Found another website that seems to have a lot of research put into the question we are asking. http://www12.georgetown.edu/students...20Missiles.htm
Titled What were policymakers’ and intelligence services’ respective roles in the decision to deploy Stinger Missiles to the anticommunist Afghan mujahedin during the rebels’ struggle with the Soviet Union? it says this:

"After a series of interagency meetings, National Security Decision Directive 166, titled ‘Expanded U.S. Aid to Afghan Guerillas’, was signed by President Reagan in March, 1985. NSDD-166 redefined the United States’ goals in Afghanistan according to the ambitions of Casey and other government officials."

So it seems that Reagan's role...was that he signed a paper after having pressure put on him for quite some time. And that his "orders" were just the wishes of people actually involved simply spoken through a position with more power then they had.

Yes, exactly. He signed the executive order that transformed America’s covert action in Afghanistan from a losing venture into a resounding success. He approved the Stingers, as well as an array of other arms that forced the Russians out. As the CIA only acts in these sorts of matters with presidential approval, his support was vital to the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan. To discount that is blatant revisionism.

Presidents make broad policy decisions, and the various agencies carry them out. What exactly did you expect, Reagan to helicopter into Kabul with a Stinger on his shoulder and an AK on his back to personally lead combat raids against the Russians? I guess he was too busy in Nicaragua hunting down Sandinista babies.

The program funding was increased yearly due to lobbying by prominent U.S. politicians and government officials, such as Charles Wilson, Gordon Humphrey, Fred Ikle, and William Casey. Under the Reagan administration, U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen evolved into a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, called the Reagan Doctrine, in which the U.S. provided military and other support to anti-communist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Judging presidents accurately just seems amazingly tough to me. Especially since to truly judge one president it is important to know a lot about all the others otherwise you might be blowing faults out of proportion.

I kind of have a desire to read about all of them...but so many other books have my interest first.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Yes, exactly. He signed the executive order that transformed America’s covert action in Afghanistan from a losing venture into a resounding success. He approved the Stingers, as well as an array of other arms that forced the Russians out. As the CIA only acts in these sorts of matters with presidential approval, his support was vital to the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan. To discount that is blatant revisionism.

Presidents make broad policy decisions, and the various agencies carry them out. What exactly did you expect, Reagan to helicopter into Kabul with a Stinger on his shoulder and an AK on his back to personally lead combat raids against the Russians? I guess he was too busy in Nicaragua hunting down Sandinista babies.

That's completely disingenuous and I suspect you know that. It wasn't "losing" and then "winning" when Reagan signed a piece of paper. The CIA and those that would go on pressuring the Reagan administration had differing views on the level of input in terms of weaponry. The insurgency was already funded with weaponry up to advanced explosive delivery systems. It wasn't Reagan's own idea nor his own will that got him to sign that piece of paper. Select people wanted more advanced weaponry in the insurgents hands then the CIA was willing to give, so they asked and pressured Reagan until he did it. That doesn't make him responsible for the funding that was already pouring in from Congress, it just makes him partly responsible for the stingers (yes I will concede that). But as we have all seen, it doesn't take stingers to mire an advanced army down and achieve goals against them.

Again, the only part Reagan actually enters the process is him signing the paper. Once again, the right wing takes that small part of the equation that involves him and gives Reagan full credit and responsibility. I might be wrong in leaving him completely out of the equation, but you are dead wrong in making it out that if he didn't sign the paper that the insurgents would be doomed with only billions of American dollars and a large surplus of American delivered firearms weaponry. He helped, but was not the catalyst for success by far. By your logic, presidents are responsible for every single major event and policy that happens during their term.

[PanzerJaeger]

That's completely disingenuous and I suspect you know that. It wasn't "losing" and then "winning" when Reagan signed a piece of paper.

Not according to Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who was director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council.

I hate to repost source material, but it is directly applicable.

The problem, Cannistraro said, was that as the Soviets moved to escalate, the U.S. aid was "just enough to get a very brave people killed" because it encouraged the mujaheddin to fight but did not provide them with the means to win.

Conservatives in the Reagan administration and especially in Congress saw the CIA as part of the problem. Humphrey, the former senator and a leading conservative supporter of the mujaheddin, found the CIA "really, really reluctant" to increase the quality of support for the Afghan rebels to meet Soviet escalation. For their part, CIA officers felt the war was not going as badly as some skeptics thought, and they worried that it might not be possible to preserve secrecy in the midst of a major escalation. A sympathetic U.S. official said the agency's key decision-makers "did not question the wisdom" of the escalation, but were "simply careful."

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, and national security adviser Robert D. McFarlane signed an extensive annex, augmenting the original Carter intelligence finding that focused on "harassment" of Soviet occupying forces, according to several sources. Although it covered diplomatic and humanitarian objectives as well, the new, detailed Reagan directive used bold language to authorize stepped-up covert military aid to the mujaheddin, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal.

I'm not sure what role you expect a president to play in these types of activities. Reagan's vision and stated policy was to directly fund anti-communist efforts around the globe. He not only made Afghanistan a foreign policy priority, but signed a specific directive to fund a covert war, which carried significant political risk (as he later found out). He made the ultimate decision to vastly increase support to the Mujahideen including the critical Stinger missiles and deserves ultimate credit for the outcome.

To execute this policy, President Reagan deployed CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers to train and equip the Mujihadeen forces against the Red Army. Although the CIA and Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson have received the most attention for their roles, the key architect of the strategy was Michael G. Vickers, a young CIA paramilitary officer working for Gust Avrakotos, the CIA's regional head.[8][9] Reagan's Covert Action program assisted in ending the Soviet's occupation in Afghanistan.[10][11] A Pentagon senior official, Michael Pillsbury, successfully advocated providing Stinger missiles to the Afghan resistance, according to recent books and academic articles.[12]

By your logic, presidents are responsible for every single major event and policy that happens during their term.

Allow me a few rhetorical questions. Do you think that President Obama visits the Pentagon regularly to select targets and operations for Coalition forces? Do you think he had anything to do with current US Military counterinsurgency doctrine? Assuming your answer to both is 'no', should the president then not receive any credit for the outcome of his 'Surge'? After all, all he has really done is decide on a generalized policy goal.

What about healthcare? Does he deserve credit for getting that passed. He didn't author the bill, nor did he vote to pass it. All he really did was throw his support behind it and sign a piece of paper.

By your logic, presidents aren't responsible for any major policy enacted during their term, as none of them actually implement them.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Not according to Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who was director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council.

I hate to repost source material, but it is directly applicable.

I'm not sure what role you expect a president to play in these types of activities. Reagan's vision and stated policy was to directly fund anti-communist efforts around the globe. He not only made Afghanistan a foreign policy priority, but signed a specific directive to fund a covert war, which carried significant political risk (as he later found out). He made the ultimate decision to vastly increase support to the Mujahideen including the critical Stinger missiles and deserves ultimate credit for the outcome.

By your logic, presidents aren't responsible for any major policy enacted during their term, as none of them actually implement them.

Hmmm. You are correct here. While this does not mean in any way that Reagan won the Cold War (which I still hold was Gorbachev's doing as well as an inherent broken economic system falling apart on itself)...yes you are probably right that ultimately, the success of the Afghanistan insurgents probably did rest on getting those Stinger missiles, which mean credit must be given to Reagan.

Don't ever let it be said that ACIN is a stubborn ass who doesn't admit when his arguments are shown to be incorrect or correct them.

By the way, my logic is that the president receives dozens of papers all about every topic in the world for him/her to sign and then it's lunch time. I don't consider a president incredibly responsible unless the president is actively aware about the issue and is involved deeply in the progress of the issue throughout the political process. In my opinion there are degrees of responsibility depending on the involvement of the individual president in the issue/subject. Some bills are just there for the president to sign off on, some bills/issues are undertaken by the president to be made a big deal. Each president is unique in their goals in that each president usually has personal ideas on certain issues that they want to make an impact in, more so then in others. The bills on issues that a president has put more time into then other issues bestow a greater responsibility on the president then the bills on issues he doesn't put as much focus on.

It might not be the best system, but in my opinion, blanket statements that if it was signed on his watch then he is solely to blame is less realistic especially given the nature of how the American political system works. In a division of power setup it seems odd to always point at the president as if the veto power makes him the arbiter of what passes or not as if there is no external Congressional, special interest or public pressure on him/her.

Overall, I still rate Reagan as below average. His domestic policies were still atrocious in my opinion. But, I will acknowledge that he did play a part in the Cold War turning out how it did, but is still enormously over hyped by the right in the country. Looking back in hindsight, perhaps it was foolish of me to think that the president of the United States would not have some involvement in the playing out of the USSR collapsing.

[PanzerJaeger]

Hmmm. You are correct here. While [B]this does not mean in any way that Reagan won the Cold War

Fair enough. I also agree that the idea that Reagan 'won' the Cold War is a gross oversimplification of events. His foreign policy was involved fomenting the general loss of confidence in the Soviet system during the end of the USSR, though.