Reagan

[a completely inoffensive name]

You would be good to. With the old guard gone, the smartest people in the room are me and a slightly effeminate Parisian.

I beg to differ, but whatever. I will give you that every president does commit borderline crimes in some way and that many (not all) of Reagan's foreign policy had been implemented in some way since the 1940s. However, he was not what America needed. You are the best example of someone who has been force fed a big lie so many times you believe it. Now you are just regurgitating phrases from the PR machine. Reagan did nothing. Absolutely nothing. He talked big, but every single president from Truman to Bush Sr. talked big about beating the USSR. The man who ended the Cold War was Gorbachev plain and simple, the USSR was doomed anyway since the economy and their momentum were broken in Afghanistan and a centrally planned economy isn't feasible at all any way.

1. The USSR economic model was flawed from the beginning.
2. Charlie Wilson exacerbated it by funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
3. Gorbachev took advantage of the now broken economy by implementing political and economic reforms which broke apart the Soviet Union.

No Reagan at all in that sequence. This is why I am saying he is not terrible but below average. He did not end the Cold War, and the US foreign policy under his administration was a continuation of decades past even up to today. However he still implemented a failed economic model (Reaganomics) and created the debt problem we find ourselves in by adding billions upon billions dollars to it with embarrassing "show off" programs like Star Wars.

EDIT: Like it or not, the President that contributed the most towards winning the Cold War was Nixon with his policy of detente and brilliant pitting of Communist China against Communist USSR, breaking up a powerful alliance.

[Vladimir]

...The man who ended the Cold War was Gorbachev plain and simple...

I thought it was the flawed economic model, Richard Nixon, and Charlie Wilson.

[Strike For The South]

I beg to differ, but whatever. I will give you that every president does commit borderline crimes in some way and that many (not all) of Reagan's foreign policy had been implemented in some way since the 1940s. However, he was not what America needed. You are the best example of someone who has been force fed a big lie so many times you believe it. Now you are just regurgitating phrases from the PR machine. Reagan did nothing. Absolutely nothing. He talked big, but every single president from Truman to Bush Sr. talked big about beating the USSR. The man who ended the Cold War was Gorbachev plain and simple, the USSR was doomed anyway since the economy and their momentum were broken in Afghanistan and a centrally planned economy isn't feasible at all any way.

"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.

1. The USSR economic model was flawed from the beginning.

Agreed

2. Charlie Wilson exacerbated it by funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

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)

3. Gorbachev took advantage of the now broken economy by implementing political and economic reforms which broke apart the Soviet Union.

thats Fine.

No Reagan at all in that sequence. This is why I am saying he is not terrible but below average. He did not end the Cold War, and the US foreign policy under his administration was a continuation of decades past even up to today. However he still implemented a failed economic model (Reaganomics) and created the debt problem we find ourselves in by adding billions upon billions dollars to it with embarrassing "show off" programs like Star Wars.

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.

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.

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.

EDIT: Like it or not, the President that contributed the most towards winning the Cold War was Nixon with his policy of detente and brilliant pitting of Communist China against Communist USSR, breaking up a powerful alliance.

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.

I can't believe I just witnessed apologetics for the torture and murder of a quarter-million people. I seriously have no idea how to respond to this.

I disagree

[Hax]

The very existence, not to mention the extent, organization, allegiance, and direct US knowledge/funding of the supposed ‘death squads of Nicaragua’ are all, of course, highly debatable and should be viewed in the context of the greater Cold War.

That's what I've always admired about you. You always care about the context. Especially when it comes to the modern political history of Islam.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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.