Washington Warmongering Undermining Iranian Reform

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Via economic warfare. Read about the arms race and the subsequent economic collapse of the Soviet Union. In short Rony and Magy made sure the Soviets spent so much on guns that they didn't have any butter.

That's a nice myth, but how did that work? What was it with the soviet economy? Or more interestingly, relating to defense spending, the east german economy? And why do we have Cuba and North Korea still around the way they are, if that works so well?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Iranian reform wasn't going anywhere, anyway, and that's about 90% of the problem.

The longer that situation remained static, the greater the possibility for posibility for the population trying to push the situation to a head. While people were beginngin to become disillusioned with prospects for reform, it could have led to mass protests and more. Now the right-wing can mobilize more easily and crush the reformists, which would have been harder for them before.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
That's a nice myth, but how did that work? What was it with the soviet economy? Or more interestingly, relating to defense spending, the east german economy? And why do we have Cuba and North Korea still around the way they are, if that works so well?

I'm a work so I don't have the book in front of me but as I recall at the height of the Arms race the Soviets were spending 70% of the state budget on weapons remember the state owned everything so that essentially meant a monsterious portion of GNP was tied up in military expenditures in a vain effort to keep up with the US who was spending less then 3% of GNP on defense.

Now realize the Soviet state had to pay for all the new factories, they had to invest in all the new products which those factories would produce, they had to invest in EVERYTHING and yet the vast majority of their resources were spent trying to keep up militarially with the west. That doesn't leave enough to pay for things like health care, social security, education, roads, dams, and everything else which the state must pay for. Now add on the fact that communist collectivized agriculture was an absolute catastrophy for the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire actually produced more grain in 1912 then the Soviets were producing in 1970 even after all the massive irrigation projects and mechinization. The state just couldn't run a collective farm to save its life, but, the people still needed food so what do you do? The anwser was you had to import grain and the US and Europe were happy to sell the Soviets all the food they wanted if the Soviets would be so kind as to pay for it with hard currency. They didn't have hard currency so they had to borrow money from western banks.

Do you see where this is going? The original problem still isn't solved so they would run throw that loan and have to take out an even larger loan to conver year 1's debt plus the original interest plus year 2's debt plus the new interest plus...

[Dinner]

North Korea has survived by using a policy of "Self-Relience" which essentially means "we are so damn poor we can't afford to import anything so we're going to pretend we don't want to import anything". That goes great until the collectived agriculutral sector can't even feed the people on a starvation ration. Thus they now survive on handouts from donor states and freebs which the Chinese give to them.

Cuba has survived by cutting state expenditures to the bone (including the military which is unusual for a communist country) and by trying to bump up the tourism sector. By creating special tourist zones where foreigners can come and spend their dollars and Euros but where the natives are officially not allowed to go unless accompanied by a foreigner has given Castro the money to keep his lumpering incompetent state running. Even if only barely so.

[DanS]

Seriously, what the US says or what it does in the neighborhood seems to have little impact on what happens in-country. It goes by its own tide, which isn't attached to the timing of US foreign policy. When we labeled Iran in the Axis of Evil, it didn't have any impact. What we did in Afghanistan didn't have any impact. There were still good student demonstrations last Spring and Fall. The jury is still out with regard to Iraq.

Anyway, the conservatives using the US as an excuse to crack down on the student demonstrators and reformists is nothing new. They've been doing it for the last two decades, with or without American provocation. We're still "the Great Satan", remember?

[Imran Siddiqui]

And yes, getting rid of the USSR and liberating Eastern Europe (when the USSR fell) definetly is worth the current flourishing of Islamic terrorism. Without a doubt. I'd make the trade any day.

[DanS]

Oerdin: The % defense of GDP number for the USSR is all over the map. But we know how much we spent during the Cold War. Some $6.3 trillion.

I think we need to look at what started off the destabilization, however. It was US funding of Vatican support for Solidarity propaganda and organization.

[Giancarlo]

The USSR spent anywhere between 30-40% of their GDP on the military.. those are figures I heard. Their economy was badly mismanaged. If Gorbachev would of stayed in power the USSR would of lasted a bit longer but would of collapsed economically and politically within ten years of 1991 (speaking when Gorbachev quitted, and the USSR was dissolved). It is better that didn't happen or else Russia would of been in a civil war.

[Richelieu]

Anyway, the conservatives using the US as an excuse to crack down on the student demonstrators and reformists is nothing new. They've been doing it for the last two decades, with or without American provocation. We're still "the Great Satan", remember?

But this is just giving them more arguments. After all, today we can say that at least there is a reform movement. The US posturing will certainly hurt it.

What i'm wondering is : is this done on purpose, are they that dumb that they don't realize the consequences, or do they just not care?

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And yes, getting rid of the USSR and liberating Eastern Europe (when the USSR fell) definetly is worth the current flourishing of Islamic terrorism. Without a doubt. I'd make the trade any day.

[DanS]

But this is just giving them more arguments. After all, today we can say that at least there is a reform movement. The US posturing will certainly hurt it.

What evidence do you have to support this? We've been posturing for the last 20 years. Has it hurt the reform movement?

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by DanS
But this is just giving them more arguments. After all, today we can say that at least there is a reform movement. The US posturing will certainly hurt it.

What evidence do you have to support this?

Think about it Dan. I'm not going to provide a link for this one.

We've been posturing for the last 20 years. Has it hurt the reform movement?

Please! Are you trying to say that the American rhetoric has been the same under Clinton or even under Bush Senior as it is under G.W. ?

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Oerdin

I'm a work so I don't have the book in front of me but as I recall at the height of the Arms race the Soviets were spending 70% of the state budget on weapons remember the state owned everything so that essentially meant a monsterious portion of GNP was tied up in military expenditures in a vain effort to keep up with the US who was spending less then 3% of GNP on defense.

The US was spending around 5-7 % of GDP on defense during th 1980s. For the USSR, estimates usually go from 10-20 %. The ones above that seem highly implausible to me.

Originally posted by Oerdin
North Korea has survived by using a policy of "Self-Relience" which essentially means "we are so damn poor we can't afford to import anything so we're going to pretend we don't want to import anything". ... Cuba has survived by cutting state expenditures to the bone (including the military which is unusual for a communist country) and by trying to bump up the tourism sector.

Now that's odd - why didn't the USSR chose those options to survive?

More interestingly, the soviet satellite states spent very little on defense. Why did they collpase? And collapse first?

[Kropotkin]

While I'm not going to make a stand on the issue per se. Although as far as I've understood it, the serious problems in the soviet economy started in the late 1960s, early 1970s.

What is interesting to me is the myth (or truth if you like) that Reagans policies lead to the fall of the soviet union. For obvious reasons this is a common conception amoungst people that supported reagan, thus having a general, right wing view on economics. From their perspective the soviet economy should fail due to the false logic it was based on. If capitalism is a superior system and the soviet system is it's anti-thesis (so to speak), the soviet system would collaps under its own weight. But at the same time they salute Reagan for creating the soviet union downfall. With this logic it was the exogenous pressure that made the system fail, not the system itself. Only in a indirect fashion as the system couldn't produce the same amount of weapons as the american system could. If the soviet economic system was so inferior there wouldn't be any need for the arms race, instead an arms race only would lead to risks of a nuclear war.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Anybody remember the invasion of Afghanistan?

I thought not...."

Which one? It's been invaded for like centuries. Nobody has ever succeeded in bringing peace and stability there. I doubt anyone will until the Afghanis change themselves.