Obama: Egypt Is Not Our Ally, But Not Our Enemy

[Papist]

[color=#333333][font='lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif][size=3]Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia[/size][/font][/color]

[img]http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/582419_10152087806755084_722201675_n.jpg[/img]

[Aloysius]

Meanwhile, in Libya
[img]http://i.imgur.com/E0XBw.jpg[/img]

Meanwhile, in America:
[img]http://rockbeyondbelief.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/thank-god-for-dead-soldiers.jpg[/img]

There are idiots everywhere, and there are good people everywhere...

[img]http://i.imgur.com/r4eSy.jpg[/img]

[Winchester]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1347678494' post='2482555']
You just don't know how to deal properly with Serbian agitators. Arabs aren't like us. They only understand force.


Uggghhh... I meant to say Serbs. I forgot that when Ferdinand was shot Balkan peoples were also considered unreformable non-westerners and Arabs were considered whites.
[/quote]
We know. You went overseas. We're all impressed. Now move on.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' timestamp='1347686630' post='2482629']
[img]http://www.crackajack.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/bros.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

That is one weird movie.

[4588686]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1347740713' post='2482764']
We know. You went overseas. We're all impressed. Now move on.
[/quote]


Aloysius mentioned Archduke Ferdinand. Who was assassinated by a Serb.

[Ed Normile]

From what I gather in the multifarious posts in this thread that a fair majority of people here believe that a nation can garner respect through weakness ? The bully in the school is basically no different than the bully who runs a country or a terrorist organization, they sense a weakness and they will attack. Of course Reagen had much to do with the downfall of the USSR, and it was Ronald Reagen, the person touted as a wreckless shoot first ask questions later cowboy that was the cause for release of the hostages taken under the weak President Carter and held for 444 days under his watch as the Iranians had no fear of him or his Presidency. The hostages were released the day Ronald Reagen was inaugurated, think that was a coincedence, or Reagens promise to level Iran if the hostages were not released. The bullies usually back down when stood up to, but the weak who try to appease or bargain get trampled.

ed

[4588686]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1347753786' post='2482813']
From what I gather in the multifarious posts in this thread that a fair majority of people here believe that a nation can garner respect through weakness ? The bully in the school is basically no different than the bully who runs a country or a terrorist organization, they sense a weakness and they will attack. Of course Reagen had much to do with the downfall of the USSR, and it was Ronald Reagen, the person touted as a wreckless shoot first ask questions later cowboy that was the cause for release of the hostages taken under the weak President Carter and held for 444 days under his watch as the Iranians had no fear of him or his Presidency. The hostages were released the day Ronald Reagen was inaugurated, think that was a coincedence, or Reagens promise to level Iran if the hostages were not released. The bullies usually back down when stood up to, but the weak who try to appease or bargain get trampled.

ed
[/quote]

What substantive role, aside from recognizing Gorbachev as someone to work with, did Ronald Reagan play in the collapse of the Soviet Union? Specifics would be nice.

Helping the Mujaheddin helped draw out the war in Afghanistan a bit. Although he didn't start helping them until the USSR had already been in there about 7 years and would withdraw 2 years later. I'm not sure how that goes. Providing the Mujaheddin with stinger missiles may have actually prompted the Soviets to get the hell out of there. I don't know. That's pretty murky.

I'm not bashing Reagan here. There are plenty of other things to bash Reagan for. But the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union was much more the result of internal factors than anything external and the biggest single cause were Gorbachev's reforms which more than anything else let the genie out of the bottle. He did do a good job in rejecting the pressures of his base and actually engaging with Gorbachev.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1347753393' post='2482809']
Aloysius mentioned Archduke Ferdinand. Who was assassinated by a Serb.
[/quote]
Stop taking sides.

[Mercy me]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1347754389' post='2482818']
I'm not bashing Reagan here. There are plenty of other things to bash Reagan for. But the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union was much more the result of internal factors than anything external and the biggest single cause were Gorbachev's reforms which more than anything else let the genie out of the bottle. He did do a good job in rejecting the pressures of his base and actually engaging with Gorbachev.
[/quote]

Reagan's policies absolutely did cause the collapse of the USSR. Yes, it collapsed from within but it was due to external pressure applied by Reagan.

[Mercy me]

[quote name='Ed Normile' timestamp='1347753786' post='2482813']
From what I gather in the multifarious posts in this thread that a fair majority of people here believe that a nation can garner respect through weakness ? The bully in the school is basically no different than the bully who runs a country or a terrorist organization, they sense a weakness and they will attack. Of course Reagen had much to do with the downfall of the USSR, and it was Ronald Reagen, the person touted as a wreckless shoot first ask questions later cowboy that was the cause for release of the hostages taken under the weak President Carter and held for 444 days under his watch as the Iranians had no fear of him or his Presidency. The hostages were released the day Ronald Reagen was inaugurated, think that was a coincedence, or Reagens promise to level Iran if the hostages were not released. The bullies usually back down when stood up to, but the weak who try to appease or bargain get trampled.

ed
[/quote]

Nor was it a coincidence that Amb. Stevens was assassinated on Sept. 11th of the first year after Bin Laden was killed.

[4588686]

[quote name='Mercy me' timestamp='1347761183' post='2482854']
Reagan's policies absolutely did cause the collapse of the USSR. Yes, it collapsed from within but it was due to external pressure applied by Reagan.
[/quote]

Ok. Which policies and how?

[4588686]

Again, as much as I dislike Reagan, I'm not denying that he deserves a lot of credit for the end of the USSR. He does deserve enormous credit for meeting Gorbachev half-way and giving him the breathing room he needed to pursue his own policies domestically. But he deserves credit for doing exactly opposite of what so many people think he actually did.

[Jaime]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1347754389' post='2482818']
What substantive role, aside from recognizing Gorbachev as someone to work with, did Ronald Reagan play in the collapse of the Soviet Union? Specifics would be nice.

Helping the Mujaheddin helped draw out the war in Afghanistan a bit. Although he didn't start helping them until the USSR had already been in there about 7 years and would withdraw 2 years later. I'm not sure how that goes. Providing the Mujaheddin with stinger missiles may have actually prompted the Soviets to get the hell out of there. I don't know. That's pretty murky.

I'm not bashing Reagan here. There are plenty of other things to bash Reagan for. But the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union was much more the result of internal factors than anything external and the biggest single cause were Gorbachev's reforms which more than anything else let the genie out of the bottle. He did do a good job in rejecting the pressures of his base and actually engaging with Gorbachev.
[/quote]

It's my understanding from my college days ( a hundred years ago) that Reagan was giving credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union because he upped the ante in the cold war and forced the Soviet Union to try to keep up. He increased our defense spending over 40% and the Soviet Union went broke trying to keep up.

[4588686]

[quote name='jaime' timestamp='1347762726' post='2482875']
It's my understanding from my college days ( a hundred years ago) that Reagan was giving credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union because he upped the ante in the cold war and forced the Soviet Union to try to keep up. He increased our defense spending over 40% and the Soviet Union went broke trying to keep up.
[/quote]

Reagan did have an exaggerated sense of Soviet power (as did all American Presidents, the CIA's Kremlinologists always did a high and low bound estimate of Soviet capabilities and we now know that the Soviets never even met the low ball estimates) and his increased spending certainly put a strain on the Soviet economy (which was already strained). Honestly, exactly what role that strain played on internal Soviet pressures really exceeds my abilities, and I don't know if anyone has really worked that out. But the greatest cause of the Soviet Unions collapse identified by numerous sources was Gorbachev. The Soviet Union could have hunkered down and still been a major military power. Gorbachev inadvertently unleashed a bunch of animal spirits that were what really tore the Soviet system apart from the inside out (nationalism was huge, the lack of legitimacy of the Soviet system being freely discussed thanks to those reforms et cetera). There were a lot of causes for the Soviet collapse that kind of all exploded at once. And from what I have read that poo storm got unleashed because of Gorbachev's reforms. And one reason that Gorbachev had the breathing room to unleash those animal spirits (accidently) was because Reagan seemed like somebody he could work with.

[url="http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/files/jia/191-206_Cohen.pdf"]http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/files/jia/191-206_Cohen.pdf[/url]


[b] [/b]

[b][size=4]Journal: Is the current U.S. policy toward Russia putting us in greater danger than [/size][size=4]during the Cold War? [/size][/b]
[size=4]Cohen: The real concern I have with this “we won the Cold War” triumphalism is the mythology that we are safer today than we were when the Soviet [/size][size=4]Union existed. Though it is blasphemous to say so, we are not safer for several [/size][size=4]reasons, one being that the Soviet state kept the lid on very dangerous things. The [/size][size=4]Soviet Union was in control of its nuclear and related arsenals. Post-Soviet Russia [/size][size=4]is ‘sorta’ in control, but ‘sorta’ is not enough. There is no margin for error. [/size][size=4]Reagan’s goal in the 1980s was not to end the Soviet Union, but to turn it into [/size][size=4]a permanent partner of the United States. He came very close to achieving that [/size][size=4]and deserves enormous credit. He did what had to be done by meeting Gorbachev [/size][size=4]half-way. But since 1991, the arrogance of American policymaking toward Russia [/size][size=4]has either kept the Cold War from being fully ended or started a new one. The [/size][size=4]greatest threats to our national security still reside in Russia. This is not because [/size][size=4]it’s communist, but because it is laden with all these nuclear, chemical, and biological devices—that’s the threat. The reaction of the second Bush administration [/size][size=4]was to junk decades of safe-guarding agreements with Moscow. It was the first [/size][size=4]time in modern times that we have had no nuclear control reduction agreement [/size][size=4]with the Russians. What should worry us every day and night is the triumphalist [/size][size=4]notion that nuclear war is no longer possible. It is now possible in even more ways [/size][size=4]than before, especially accidental ones. Meanwhile, the former Soviet territories [/size][size=4]remain a Wal-Mart of dirty material and know-how. If terrorists ever explode a [/size][size=4]dirty device in the United States, even a small one, the material is likely to come [/size][size=4]from the former Soviet Union. [/size][size=4]The Nunn-Lugar Act (1992) was the best program Congress ever enacted to [/size][size=4]help Russia secure its nuclear material and know-how, a major contribution to [/size][size=4]American national security. But no one in Washington connects the dots. Take [/size][size=4]Senator Lugar himself. He seems not to understand that we need Russia’s complete [/size][size=4]cooperation to make his own legislation fully successful, but he repeatedly speaks [/size][size=4]undiplomatically, even in ugly ways, about Russia’s leaders, thereby limiting their [/size][size=4]cooperation and undermining his own legacy. In other words, to have a nuclear [/size][size=4]relationship with Russia that will secure our national security, we must have a fully [/size][size=4]cooperative, trusting political relationship with Moscow. That’s why all the talk [/size][size=4]about a replacement for the expired START agreement, which Obama has been [/size][size=4]having trouble reaching with the Kremlin, is half-witted. Even if the two sides [/size][size=4]agree, and even if the Senate and Russian Duma ratify a new treaty, the agreement will be unstable because the political relationship is bad and growing worse. [/size][size=4]Evidently, no one in the Administration, Congress, or the mainstream media, or, I [/size][size=4]should add in the think tanks, can connect these dots[/size]

[b][size=4]Journal: Keeping in mind the crucial debate over modernization going on in Moscow [/size][size=4]today, what would be the impact of a new American policy toward Russia along the lines you [/size][size=4]propose? [/size][/b]
[size=4]Cohen: We can affect the ongoing debates and struggles in Russia by our [/size][size=4]approach. If we approach Russia as an equal nation, in a cooperative manner, in a [/size][size=4]non-military way, we will help the forces there arguing for a democratic, or at least [/size][size=4]non-Stalinist modernization. If we, on the other hand, keep approaching Moscow [/size][size=4]as though it’s a defeated power, with closed fists in the form of NATO, as though [/size][size=4]Russia has no legitimate security concerns in its neighborhood, U.S. policy will [/size][size=4]give credence to the alarms and prognoses of the authoritarian modernizers. By [/size][size=4]the way, the same issue existed in American policy circles in the 1970s and 1980s. [/size][size=4]U.S. cold warriors said we (the pro-détente advocates) were wrong in insisting that [/size][size=4]their policy hurt would-be Soviet reformers. Gorbachev proved us right. He made it clear that he couldn’t carry out fundamental reform at home unless Reagan met [/size][size=4]him halfway. Reagan’s greatness was that he did so. As early as 1986, less than a [/size][size=4]year after Gorbachev came to power, Reagan met him in Reykjavik, where they [/size][size=4]almost agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons. They didn’t, but Gorbachev was [/size][size=4]able to return home and tell his powerful opponents, “You see, Reagan is a man [/size][size=4]we can work with.” The linkage became abundantly clear. While Gorbachev was [/size][size=4]introducing democracy at home, he and Reagan for the first time abolished an [/size][size=4]entire category of nuclear weapons. That’s how a new, wiser U.S. policy can really [/size][size=4]enhance our national security—and the world’s[/size]

[4588686]

I'd also note that the cold war ended about 2 years before the Soviet Union collapsed and a lot of arms reductions stuff had been discussed and put in place by the late 80's.