What if the US did nothing?

[mistermack]

Where would the US be now, if it had done nothing internationally since WW2 ?

ie Not fought in Vietnam, not supported Israel, not supported the Shah, never armed the Contras, not been bothered by Russia going into Afghanistan, etc etc.

What if they had just sat there, and kept themselves well-defended, and did fuck-all?


I personally think they would now be much richer, stronger, and more popular and influential.
Their own policies have dragged them down. How hard can it be to just do nothing?

[Ian]

Ask the Soviets.

[mistermack]

Ask the Soviets.

I think doing nothing would have had much the same effect as whatever they actually did. The Russians would have had a longer, more protracted stay in Afghanistan, which would have been demoralising. They might have spent less on defence, but that would have reduced the nuclear threat, and allowed the US to spend less.

In the end, it was the drop in the oil price, not arms spending, that hit the Soviet economy.

In any case, it was public opinion, not the economy, that changed Russia. North Korea is on it's ass, and has been for years, but there's no sign of a change there.
The Soviet Russians just didn't have the stomach or inclination for the extreme oppression needed to keep the population under control.

[Rum]

Europe would have become part of the Soviet Union. Without the bank breaking arms race (arguably set up by the USA) the USSR would not have bankrupted itself and could easily have walked into Europe in the 1950s and 60s.

Most of Asia would also be communist one way or another. The 'domino' effect feared by the Americans would have meant one country after another after Vietnam becoming allies of the USSR.

Don't kid yourself that the Kremlin didn't have world domination as a goal. They believed instinctively in universal communism.

[cronus]

Once you reverse the tape it is likely the criticality's that matter would be non-human. What if that duck had managed to lay another egg in 1947? We'd have cities on Mars now and all be speaking Spanish with a Irish twist. America would be like China and China like Japan. Albeit a Japan invaded by the British and renamed Area 47.

[mistermack]

Europe would have become part of the Soviet Union. Without the bank breaking arms race (arguably set up by the USA) the USSR would not have bankrupted itself and could easily have walked into Europe in the 1950s and 60s.

Most of Asia would also be communist one way or another. The 'domino' effect feared by the Americans would have meant one country after another after Vietnam becoming allies of the USSR.

Don't kid yourself that the Kremlin didn't have world domination as a goal. They believed instinctively in universal communism.

That's what we were fed by successive governments. It wasn't true, though. For a start, all of the people employed by the soviet military would have had to be paid for doing something. It suited the Soviets to have them in the armed forces, rather than on the streets, causing trouble. And the Soviets also made money out of arms, sold around the world. This was a gift from the US to Russia. America could have made that money.

And the domino effect was just the excuse for fighting in Vietnam. There's no evidence that it would have actually happened.
It certainly DIDN'T happen after the Americans lost the Vietnam war.

[Rum]

'International Socialism' was the name of the game. I'm no right winger as you know - I am well left of centre in my politics but I have no illusions about the ambitions of the Soviet Union.

And if you don't know that the USA won the Cold War by bankrupting the USSR more or less you need to read some modern history. It was of course a complex multi faceted strategy planned in good measure by the USA, but out spending them was the key. Here's a starter http://www.atr.org/pdf/2007/april/reaga ... rquist.pdf

Also here's a quote from Gorbachev in 1984. “The U.S. wants to exhaust the Soviet Union economically through a race in the most up-to-date and expensive space weapons. It wants to create various
kinds of difficulties for Soviet leadership, to wreck its plans ... of improving the standard of living of our people, thus arousing dissatisfaction among the people with their leadership.”

[Clinton Huxley]

Dandelion and Burdock becomes the worlds favouritest fizzy pop.

[mistermack]

Rum, if you ask any rabid right-winger, they will of course tell you that Reagan forced the Soviets to bankruptcy.

Where did you get the impression that Warren Norquist might be an unbiased reliable source?
He has no wiki page of his own, but a quick glance at his son's page tells a story :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

Why would I go to such a source for information? But having said that, he writes on the first page :

The USSR was earning hard currency by selling oil at three times its production cost and by selling weapons to oil rich countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya

which is exactly what I said.

Also, Gorbachev had his own agenda, and statements like that were helpful for the course he wanted to take.

Of course I wouldn't say that the arms race had no effect. It was just one factor, and it hurt the finances of the US more than it hurt the USSR. Of course, the US was much wealthier in the first place, so it could stand it, but nobody went bankrupt. The USSR chose it's own path. That was in the early nineties.

The major economic problem for Russia came in 1977,78, six or seven years AFTER the end of the arms race.

It was the inefficiency of the Russian economy, not the arms race, that was the problem.
While they were getting big bucks for oil, it didn't matter.

[laklak]

Dunno, but if we can get a Libertarian leaning government in 2016 we'll find out.

[Audley Strange]

Where would the US be now, if it had done nothing internationally since WW2 ?

ie Not fought in Vietnam, not supported Israel, not supported the Shah, never armed the Contras, not been bothered by Russia going into Afghanistan, etc etc.

What if they had just sat there, and kept themselves well-defended, and did fuck-all?


I personally think they would now be much richer, stronger, and more popular and influential.
Their own policies have dragged them down. How hard can it be to just do nothing?

I think you'd be asking "what if the Russians did nothing."

on a four tonne computer.

[Rum]

Rum, if you ask any rabid right-winger, they will of course tell you that Reagan forced the Soviets to bankruptcy.

Where did you get the impression that Warren Norquist might be an unbiased reliable source?
He has no wiki page of his own, but a quick glance at his son's page tells a story :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

Why would I go to such a source for information? But having said that, he writes on the first page :

The USSR was earning hard currency by selling oil at three times its production cost and by selling weapons to oil rich countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya

which is exactly what I said.

Also, Gorbachev had his own agenda, and statements like that were helpful for the course he wanted to take.

Of course I wouldn't say that the arms race had no effect. It was just one factor, and it hurt the finances of the US more than it hurt the USSR. Of course, the US was much wealthier in the first place, so it could stand it, but nobody went bankrupt. The USSR chose it's own path. That was in the early nineties.

The major economic problem for Russia came in 1977,78, six or seven years AFTER the end of the arms race.

It was the inefficiency of the Russian economy, not the arms race, that was the problem.
While they were getting big bucks for oil, it didn't matter.

I don't go in for long debates here these days but I feel pretty confident about my position on this one so I will dive in with pone of my very few (honest) walls of text posts.

Reagan was convinced that the Soviet Union was a collapsing economic system and his policies undermined what was a rotting system. The high oil prices you refer to resulted in Soviet leadership avoiding serious economic reforms and instead, it relied on oil revenues as a means of keeping its decrepit economy going. By the 80s the USSR was almost a hollow shell and its unreformed and increasingly backward industries was producing outdated armaments.

Reagan’s massively increased defense spending from $1.3 billion in 1980 to $2.5 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP. To try to keep up the Soviet Union was ‘forced’ in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP. It also froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels (which may have done a huge amount to make the government even more unpopular than it often was).

The SDA project (missile shield) was the final straw and it convinced Gorby in my view to throw in the towel and bid for a de-escalation of the arms race, which is what he did.

In addition the war in Afghanistan the USSR was fighting was costing then a huge amount - I read an estimate of about 8 billion a year. The USA supporting the opposition was forking out about a billion one reads (that coming back to bite them is another story of course).

At the same time the USA reduced the flow of Western technology to the Soviet Union and also negotiated a limit Soviet natural gas exports to Western Europe. A big factor was also a policy which resulted in a drastic fall in the price of oil in the 1980s, reducing income to the USSR significantly.

America was more resilient, flexible, lighter on its feet that the USSR could ever have been. It beat them hands down. There was never much doubt in my mind that if we avoided global catastrophe how it would end.

[klr]

There were other contributing factors as well, like improving communications technologies, and cheaper travel, especially air travel.

[Warren Dew]

And the domino effect was just the excuse for fighting in Vietnam. There's no evidence that it would have actually happened.
It certainly DIDN'T happen after the Americans lost the Vietnam war.

Actually it did happen. Or did you forget about the Khmer Rouge and the Communist takeover of Laos?

[Warren Dew]

Rum, if you ask any rabid right-winger, they will of course tell you that Reagan forced the Soviets to bankruptcy.

Where did you get the impression that Warren Norquist might be an unbiased reliable source?
He has no wiki page of his own, but a quick glance at his son's page tells a story :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

Why would I go to such a source for information? But having said that, he writes on the first page :

The USSR was earning hard currency by selling oil at three times its production cost and by selling weapons to oil rich countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya

which is exactly what I said.

Also, Gorbachev had his own agenda, and statements like that were helpful for the course he wanted to take.

Of course I wouldn't say that the arms race had no effect. It was just one factor, and it hurt the finances of the US more than it hurt the USSR. Of course, the US was much wealthier in the first place, so it could stand it, but nobody went bankrupt. The USSR chose it's own path. That was in the early nineties.

The major economic problem for Russia came in 1977,78, six or seven years AFTER the end of the arms race.

It was the inefficiency of the Russian economy, not the arms race, that was the problem.
While they were getting big bucks for oil, it didn't matter.

I don't go in for long debates here these days but I feel pretty confident about my position on this one so I will dive in with pone of my very few (honest) walls of text posts.

Reagan was convinced that the Soviet Union was a collapsing economic system and his policies undermined what was a rotting system. The high oil prices you refer to resulted in Soviet leadership avoiding serious economic reforms and instead, it relied on oil revenues as a means of keeping its decrepit economy going. By the 80s the USSR was almost a hollow shell and its unreformed and increasingly backward industries was producing outdated armaments.

Reagan’s massively increased defense spending from $1.3 billion in 1980 to $2.5 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP. To try to keep up the Soviet Union was ‘forced’ in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP. It also froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels (which may have done a huge amount to make the government even more unpopular than it often was).

The SDA project (missile shield) was the final straw and it convinced Gorby in my view to throw in the towel and bid for a de-escalation of the arms race, which is what he did.

In addition the war in Afghanistan the USSR was fighting was costing then a huge amount - I read an estimate of about 8 billion a year. The USA supporting the opposition was forking out about a billion one reads (that coming back to bite them is another story of course).

At the same time the USA reduced the flow of Western technology to the Soviet Union and also negotiated a limit Soviet natural gas exports to Western Europe. A big factor was also a policy which resulted in a drastic fall in the price of oil in the 1980s, reducing income to the USSR significantly.

America was more resilient, flexible, lighter on its feet that the USSR could ever have been. It beat them hands down. There was never much doubt in my mind that if we avoided global catastrophe how it would end.

All true - and partly the same as what mistermack pointed out, that the U.S. could stand the military expenses better due to being a wealthier country.

What's left out here is why America was a wealthier country. It wasn't just a matter of being lighter on its feet; it was mostly that American had a more efficient free market economic model, while the Soviets had a less efficient centrally planned model.