No, Reagan didn't win the Cold War

[Howedar]

The problems with the Soviet economic structure went much, much deeper than that. The whole system was concieved and run by people completely disconnected from reality, and its collapse was inevitable. Any economic system where initiative and hard work aren't rewarded (in fact, are punished with increasing demands from on high) and leeching is the best survival strategy is doomed.

Right. I was just saying that the "one big plant" thing brought it on much, much sooner.

No, absolutely not. It wasn't a good thing necessarily, but to compare this to any number of other Soviet economic failings is comical.

[RedImperator]

My understanding was that it was Stalin's fetish for building one giant plant to build tractors/tanks/whatever and building it hundreds of miles away from the requisite resources to build them that did the most damage to the Soviet Union.

The problems with the Soviet economic structure went much, much deeper than that. The whole system was concieved and run by people completely disconnected from reality, and its collapse was inevitable. Any economic system where initiative and hard work aren't rewarded (in fact, are punished with increasing demands from on high) and leeching is the best survival strategy is doomed.

Right. I was just saying that the "one big plant" thing brought it on much, much sooner.

It had little if anything to do with it. The one big plant philosophy created a single point of failure for entire industries, but that was a tradeoff for the increased efficency concentrating your manufacturing brought. Modern transportation really makes the linear distance between raw material sources and manufacturing centers irrevelant, and concentrating an entire industry into one plant means your transportation network only has to get the material for that industry into one place.

And it should be noted, the managers of these factories became very powerful, and towards the end they basically held the Soviet economy together. They would keep materials and parts in reserve and barter them with each other so a shortage of a critical product wouldn't stall the entire manufacturing sector. When the USSR collapsed, a lot of these managers parlayed these hoardes into considerable wealth and launched mafia careers with them.

[Vympel]

On the other hand, to say that hundreds of billions went into the military in Russia merely because that's where hundreds of billions had gone before is a bit suspect. It was obviously the U.S. military buildups of the Carter and Reagan years that prevented a let-up.

What the piece seems to say is that big funding for the military was an internal institutional imperative, rather than external, that only stopped in 1989. Even as relations improved, Soviet spending did not seem to respond.

Wait, I thought that Jimmy Carter canceled the B-1 program and slashed military spending

Yeah, Carter cancelled the B-1A. The Soviets continued as planned with their Tu-160; a strategic bomber far superior to the subsequent, simplified, and poorly-built Reagan B-1B in size and all out performance/firepower. As a singular example, its evidence that the Soviets didn't adjust its spending habits as America did. Anyway, the West always had a problem with "mirror-imaging" the Soviets in military departments ("we're doing this therefore they're doing it the exact same way and for the same reasons", or "they're developing this so it must be for this, and they intend to use it this way" etc)

[Ma Deuce]

Yeah, Carter cancelled the B-1A. The Soviets continued as planned with their Tu-160; a strategic bomber far superior to the subsequent, simplified, and poorly-built Reagan B-1B in size and all out performance/firepower.

Although the Tu-160 has greater range and speed, I'm pretty sure the B-1B can carry a heavier payload...

[Vympel]

Although the Tu-160 has greater range and speed, I'm pretty sure the B-1B can carry a heavier payload...

Nope- 40,000kg on the Tu-160 vs 34,020kg on the B-1B.

The B-1B has the advantage in weapons options, though. The Tu-160 is currently set-up for Kh-15A/Kh-15P SRAMskis and Kh-55SM ALCMs only. The current upgrades ("small modernizatiom") will add the Kh-555 and stealthy Kh-101/Kh-102 CALCM/ALCM, the Kh-65 aka Kh-SD, and a new supersonic weapon. The second-stage of upgrade ("large modernization") will also add new, common (as far as possible) search-attack radar, communication, EW etc. across the Tu-22M3, Tu-95MS16 and Tu-160 fleets.

The first Tu-95MSM already fired a Kh-101 back in 1999 for the first time, and an upgraded Tu-160 is apparently undergoing flight tests as well.

[Uraniun235]

Wasn't the B-1A much faster than the B-1B? I glanced at some sheet or another which listed the B-1A's top speed at around Mach 2.

[Howedar]

Yes, the B-1A was optimized for high speed dash at altitude, while the B-1B is designed to penetrate at high subsonic at very low altitude. It also has a rather lower RCS than the B-1A.

[Coyote]

So, Vympel, it is probably more acuurate to say that Reagan's tough posturing was mostly for the viewpoint of the American electorate (no surprise there) and that the collapse of the USSR was mostly Gorbachev's doing-- mostly by fiddleing while Rome burned.

Bringing on Glasnost immediately in the wake of the failed Afghanistan war was probably a monumental example of bad timing... I too have Cary Schonfeld's book and it is very telling into the effects of the Afghan War on the psyche of the people there...

But there has been give-and-take on the defense systems issue. The Americans were building the XB-70 Valkyrie; the Soviets built the MiG-25 to counter it. When the XB-70 was cancelled, the MiG-25 kept rolling off the assembly lines, so the US built the F-15 to copy it... and so on. That was all pre-Reagan, though... but the USSR did copy US systems as well, the Tu-2 was an exact replicay of the B-29...

We saw the BMP and began trying to find ways to copy it, eventually ending up with the Bradley, which was a copy of the concept if not the actual design itself... the US developed the dedicated attack helicopter with the Cobra, which was followed by the M1-24... and didn't the design of the Kiev-class aircraft carriers follow the lineage of the French Foch-class? I'm not a naval specialist, but it seems that both east and west played off of each other.

As for the Carter defense cuts/buildups, I was under the impression that he discontinued research on the Neutron Bomb specifically to avoid opening up another arms race, and that the B-1 project was cancelled because he knew that the B-2 was in development and would make the B-1 obsolete-- so why waste money on it?

Vympel, do you think that if the US and USSR had found a way to be friendly or at least neutral towards one another after WW2, that (in the abscence of arms buildups) the USSR would have survived as a command economy?

[Vympel]

So, Vympel, it is probably more acuurate to say that Reagan's tough posturing was mostly for the viewpoint of the American electorate (no surprise there) and that the collapse of the USSR was mostly Gorbachev's doing-- mostly by fiddleing while Rome burned.

Yeah, that seems best.

Bringing on Glasnost immediately in the wake of the failed Afghanistan war was probably a monumental example of bad timing... I too have Cary Schonfeld's book and it is very telling into the effects of the Afghan War on the psyche of the people there...

But there has been give-and-take on the defense systems issue. The Americans were building the XB-70 Valkyrie; the Soviets built the MiG-25 to counter it. When the XB-70 was cancelled, the MiG-25 kept rolling off the assembly lines, so the US built the F-15 to copy it... and so on. That was all pre-Reagan, though... but the USSR did copy US systems as well, the Tu-2 was an exact replicay of the B-29...[/qute]

Tu-4, actually. Its somehwat of a controversy as to what the MiG-25P was developed to counter; according to one source (purporting to be from MiG itself), it was actually a counter to Project Oxcart (A-12 which became SR-71).

We saw the BMP and began trying to find ways to copy it, eventually ending up with the Bradley, which was a copy of the concept if not the actual design itself... the US developed the dedicated attack helicopter with the Cobra, which was followed by the M1-24... and didn't the design of the Kiev-class aircraft carriers follow the lineage of the French Foch-class? I'm not a naval specialist, but it seems that both east and west played off of each other.

Personally I think naval matters are where there's the least commonality- the Soviets desinged their ships to destroy the USN, wheras the USN was geared towards to projection of power.

As for the Carter defense cuts/buildups, I was under the impression that he discontinued research on the Neutron Bomb specifically to avoid opening up another arms race, and that the B-1 project was cancelled because he knew that the B-2 was in development and would make the B-1 obsolete-- so why waste money on it?

I didn't know that- one of the reasons I heard was that the B-1A was cancelled because it was assumed that the AGM-86 ALCM would make its mission obsolete- ironically, it now carries the AGM-86

Vympel, do you think that if the US and USSR had found a way to be friendly or at least neutral towards one another after WW2, that (in the abscence of arms buildups) the USSR would have survived as a command economy?

Its possible; the USSR certainly didn't seem to have the capacity to get both guns and butter. It would've been better for them if they had instituted some slow and steady economic (not so much political) reforms as early as possible.

[Stuart Mackey]

So, Vympel, it is probably more acuurate to say that Reagan's tough posturing was mostly for the viewpoint of the American electorate (no surprise there) and that the collapse of the USSR was mostly Gorbachev's doing-- mostly by fiddleing while Rome burned.

snip

The soviets collapse would have happned with or without Gorby, their economy needed to be reformed and Gorby was the man who was the guy who was prepared to grasp the nettle.

[beyond hope]

I stand corrected.

[The Dark]

Its somehwat of a controversy as to what the MiG-25P was developed to counter; according to one source (purporting to be from MiG itself), it was actually a counter to Project Oxcart (A-12 which became SR-71).

This is what I've heard also, though coming from the Lockheed Martin side. I've also heard it was originally supposed to stop Valkyrie, and then was switched to be able to engage Blackbird instead. I find this more probable, as design work on the MiG-25 appears to have begun after the announcement of the North American Aviation contract for what became the Valkyrie.

We saw the BMP and began trying to find ways to copy it, eventually ending up with the Bradley, which was a copy of the concept if not the actual design itself

Arguable. The Bradley could also be seen as a fully-tracked successor to the M3 half-track of WWII fame, to deal with the increased mass.

the US developed the dedicated attack helicopter with the Cobra, which was followed by the M1-24

Actually the Cheyenne, which was a failure, but hey. And the Mi-24 "Hind" did introduce troop-carrying to the attack helicopter; it was almost a blend of the Huey and the HueyCobra (Bell 205 and Bell 209).


Actually, it's entirely possible that if it had been hardliners in control of the USSR, Reagan's posturing would have caused WWIII. The Soviets would know that their economy was fairly stagnant. Thus, they would either need to expand to get an influx of industry, or grow further behind in the arms race. There's no place to expand north. East lies Japan, historically difficult to invade and even at that time one of the great technological powers of the world. South lies China, a nominal ally and not very technologically advanced. Southwest is Afghanistan, with the mujihideen still ready (at that time) to resist Soviet aggression at the behest of the West. The only really opportunities to expand would be westward, either into the Nordic countries or into West Germany. Either one would cause retaliation from NATO. However, it's entirely possible this would be considered the only time for an advantageous strike, and thus war would begin. It's entirely possible that the position of Gorbachev is the only thing that averted a nuclear war in the 1980s.

[Illuminatus Primus]

China was not a Russian ally in the 80s in any way, shape, or form. They were a potential enemy.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Southwest is Afghanistan, with the mujihideen still ready (at that time) to resist Soviet aggression at the behest of the West. The only really opportunities to expand would be westward, either into the Nordic countries or into West Germany.

Oh yes, we can't expand into China cuz we wuv them so much, and central Asia is out of the question because of the mujahadeen, but NATO's divisions and tactical nukes in Western Europe are less of an obstacle, so go West?

What the fuck is in that pipe of yours?

[Howedar]

I don't know, but I sure want some.

I didn't know that nuclear war was a good way to secure industry either...