Did the U. S. win the Cold War? (1 Viewer)

[bird]

If so, what does that mean and what were the fruits of that victory?

If not, what actually did happen? Has democracy "spread"? Is there more stability or less?

My answer to the first question is no. We did not "win" anything. The fruits were rotting on the branch and vine. The collapse of the USSR and the elimination of the Iron Curtain is not the same as "winning".

What actually happened was a shift in alignments and relations. Some nations rose and some fell. The U.S. is not more secure. Democracy did not spread like we believed it would. The 'Stans are corrupt and autocratic. Other countries assumed to be democratic like Turkey and Hungary and, to a degree, Poland, have shifted with the rise of RW authoritarian politicians/movements.

On a side note the concept of a fast strike, small force military has become discredited much like the concept of military from WW2. In-and-out with minimal casualties and a so-called "purpose" and "exit strategy" is a chimera. War changes. We have not changed.

 

[samiam5211]

We declared victory, but it never ended.

Putin sees himself as the leader of the USSR.

 

[H B Lowrey]

We declared victory, but it never ended.

Putin sees himself as the leader of the USSR.

See Eisenhower's warning to the nation.

 

[J-DONK]

We declared victory, but it never ended.

Putin sees himself as the leader of the USSR.

We never really declared victory. We thought it would come across as tactless with Russians waiting in bread lines.

I think this thread gets something a little wrong. At the time there was two competing economic models. The fall of the USSR was a victory for capitalism, not democracy.

America is not some shining light for democracy. No one is looking to us as a model for democracy. We are just as autocratic as some of the countries listed in this thread.

 

[samiam5211]

We never really declared victory. We thought it would come across as tactless with Russians waiting in bread lines.

I think this thread gets something a little wrong. At the time there was two competing economic models. The fall of the USSR was a victory for capitalism, not democracy.

America is not some shining light for democracy. No one is looking to us as a model for democracy. We are just as autocratic as some of the countries listed in this thread.

We stopped fighting it may have been a better way to word it.

You are right though, the ability to build bombs with debt allowed us to win the battle of attrition.

 

[bird]

We never really declared victory. We thought it would come across as tactless with Russians waiting in bread lines.

I think this thread gets something a little wrong. At the time there was two competing economic models. The fall of the USSR was a victory for capitalism, not democracy.

America is not some shining light for democracy. No one is looking to us as a model for democracy. We are just as autocratic as some of the countries listed in this thread.

J-Donk, thanks for that. It does cast the light better than the meme of winning. But it also isn’t true. The concept of T.I.N.A (There Is No Alternative) is flawed. Capitalism, imo, is best described as a system of transactions between various actors, public and private, where a combination of legally allowed and supported property rights exists along side private accrual of profit from those transactions. This system is amoral. Not in the sense that we generally construe it but rather that it is a legal construct and actual morality (a term lacking definition) derives from the actors themselves. The so-called invisible hand which Smith only said once or twice does not exist. Smith also noted the lack of morality as well as the tendency for “merchants” to collude.

All of that being said political economy still relies upon a false premise which is that democracies and relations between nation-states and other actors are rational. This is false. Recent history has shown again and again how this country and likely others are taken aback by actions we deem immoral or worse. Yet we lack an ability to foresee let alone react to swift changes because we do not understand that complex systems give rise to inherent instability. Yes, the Soviet system collapsed. That does not mean that capitalism in its current form “won”. It means that power shifted. It means that we can look at the world right now and say we have a host of problems which directly result from a hide-bound political economy wedded to the notion of T.I.N.A.

 

[bird]

We stopped fighting it may have been a better way to word it.

You are right though, the ability to build bombs with debt allowed us to win the battle of attrition.

Yes, we did stop. Our primary opponent walked away due to necrosis. We failed to see the rise of the Middle Kingdom and its impact long-term. We also failed to understand, in the aggregate, the Middle East. We see that area in black and white which is all too common a failure of ours.

 

[H B Lowrey]

We never really declared victory. We thought it would come across as tactless with Russians waiting in bread lines.

I think this thread gets something a little wrong. At the time there was two competing economic models. The fall of the USSR was a victory for capitalism, not democracy.

America is not some shining light for democracy. No one is looking to us as a model for democracy. We are just as autocratic as some of the countries listed in this thread.

Our version of capitalism is nothing to emulate either.

 

[SamAndreas]

Cold war, win, lose???

Those seem like concepts which don't go together. MAD won I guess, if one must force the issue, mutually assured destruction deterrence worked. Worked is winning.

We all won because MAD won, and none of us won, we all lost because there were costs and the costs were high.

Where we really lost it was having a a couple generations of kids terrorized under their desks while they were growing up. Drop and Cover.



This seems like the best thread for this Guardian article:

One in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military

Leaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military

www.theguardian.com

Sounds ominous. It kind of concerned me until I read the article and found this:

One in five applicants to the white supremacist group Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former ties to the US military, according to leaked documents published and reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and alternative media collective Unicorn Riot.

That was the first sentence so I wasn't concerned for very long. What I found relieving about that is this is that it's a media illusion. The white supremacist applicants are "claiming" to have been in the military. They have not been confirmed to have been in the military. There is a huge numerical difference between people who "claim" to have served, and the actual number who have served.

My estimation would be that at best one in five of the type who would be applying to a white supremacist organization would lie and "claim" service without ever having joined or having ever served.

One in five of (one in five) reduces significantly the percentage of "those" people applying actually having ever been in the military. Which means that they are falling well short of getting a representative share of adults in our population who have served in the past.

 

[J-DONK]

J-Donk, thanks for that. It does cast the light better than the meme of winning. But it also isn’t true. The concept of T.I.N.A (There Is No Alternative) is flawed. Capitalism, imo, is best described as a system of transactions between various actors, public and private, where a combination of legally allowed and supported property rights exists along side private accrual of profit from those transactions. This system is amoral. Not in the sense that we generally construe it but rather that it is a legal construct and actual morality (a term lacking definition) derives from the actors themselves. The so-called invisible hand which Smith only said once or twice does not exist. Smith also noted the lack of morality as well as the tendency for “merchants” to collude.

All of that being said political economy still relies upon a false premise which is that democracies and relations between nation-states and other actors are rational. This is false. Recent history has shown again and again how this country and likely others are taken aback by actions we deem immoral or worse. Yet we lack an ability to foresee let alone react to swift changes because we do not understand that complex systems give rise to inherent instability. Yes, the Soviet system collapsed. That does not mean that capitalism in its current form “won”. It means that power shifted. It means that we can look at the world right now and say we have a host of problems which directly result from a hide-bound political economy wedded to the notion of T.I.N.A.

I mean I agree with most of your comment, but capitalism did win in a sense. Russia, and China are both capitalist authoritarian regimes now. There is no communist success story. Russia at the height of it's power couldn't equal the abundance of goods seen in the west. The only real question left is does capitalism eventually lead to a post-scarcity socialist society ala Star Trek?

I never really answered your original question. What did we win? The world won Pax Americana. Most of the world's economies are intertwined by the trade American military dominance provided. Economic trade sanctions against Russia are serious deterrent with no military action needed. I don't know how you define safety on a global scale, but the world is less violent, and more stable.

 

[bird]

I mean I agree with most of your comment, but capitalism did win in a sense. Russia, and China are both capitalist authoritarian regimes now. There is no communist success story. Russia at the height of it's power couldn't equal the abundance of goods seen in the west. The only real question left is does capitalism eventually lead to a post-scarcity socialist society ala Star Trek?

I never really answered your original question. What did we win? The world won Pax Americana. Most of the world's economies are intertwined by the trade American military dominance provided. Economic trade sanctions against Russia are serious deterrent with no military action needed. I don't know how you define safety on a global scale, but the world is less violent, and more stable.

I would say that capitalism leads, as it is now in this country and elsewhere, to a two-tiered society a la the movie Elysium. Yes, that is a gross example. Jeffrey Faux captured it well, imo, in his book "The Servant Economy".

Russia is much more an authoritarian kleptocracy than capitalist. Obeisance to the Vohzd is mandatory. This also underscores Putin's nationalistic and expansionist tendencies. China is best described as an authoritarian system with some room made for people to make some money. Again as inj Russia the CCP requires that the people "color within the lines" so to speak. Thus, Von Hayek was wrong as capitalism does not arbitrarily lead to freedom.

As for Pax Americana it became a chimera. Force projection is far more difficult now than it was when the world was, at least superficially, divided into two camps. That is no longer the case and asymmetrical warfare is showing itself to be far harder to deal with.

Complexity increases as speed of communication and dependency upon unsecured and unsecurable systems gain stronger holds on people. The internet is not safe nor can it be made safe. As complexity increases systems become inherently unstable. We need only look at the South China Sea and, as always it seems, the Middle East. Violence is not only state on state but increasing group on group/group on state. We also see problems in Latin America as usual, Sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria especially as well as authoritarianism rising in Europe. No, we are not more stable and less violent. Instability and violence have simply shifted.

I suggest Joshua Cooper Ramo's book: "The Age of The Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us".

 

[bird]

Cold war, win, lose???

Those seem like concepts which don't go together. MAD won I guess, if one must force the issue, mutually assured destruction deterrence worked. Worked is winning.

We all won because MAD won, and none of us won, we all lost because there were costs and the costs were high.

Where we really lost it was having a a couple generations of kids terrorized under their desks while they were growing up. Drop and Cover.



This seems like the best thread for this Guardian article:

One in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military

Leaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military

www.theguardian.com

Sounds ominous. It kind of concerned me until I read the article and found this:





That was the first sentence so I wasn't concerned for very long. What I found relieving about that is this is that it's a media illusion. The white supremacist applicants are "claiming" to have been in the military. They have not been confirmed to have been in the military. There is a huge numerical difference between people who "claim" to have served, and the actual number who have served.

My estimation would be that at best one in five of the type who would be applying to a white supremacist organization would lie and "claim" service without ever having joined or having ever served.

One in five of (one in five) reduces significantly the percentage of "those" people applying actually having ever been in the military. Which means that they are falling well short of getting a representative share of adults in our population who have served in the past.

Well, perception is not only reality but control of how perception is presented also becomes or is assumed reality. That there are numbers of adults who are/were in the military and who identify as white supremacist is important for several reason. On the media side it means more clicks and eventually more revenue. The actual function of free press has basically vanished. A second issue is that the movement is then provided with numbers, unknown for certain how many, who have received military training which then has the potential for disruption. Third, we have a general populace that consumes "media" without due diligence and thus can become either frightened or emboldened due to overreaction. Resources which may be scarce to start with are then allocated either internally or externally depending upon where one is in relation to white supremacy. We have media consciously or unconsciously projecting agitprop.

 

[H B Lowrey]

Cold war, win, lose???

Those seem like concepts which don't go together. MAD won I guess, if one must force the issue, mutually assured destruction deterrence worked. Worked is winning.

We all won because MAD won, and none of us won, we all lost because there were costs and the costs were high.

Where we really lost it was having a a couple generations of kids terrorized under their desks while they were growing up. Drop and Cover.



This seems like the best thread for this Guardian article:

One in five applicants to white supremacist group tied to US military

Leaked documents show that about 18 out of 87 applicants, or 21%, to Patriot Front were currently or formerly affiliated with military

www.theguardian.com

Sounds ominous. It kind of concerned me until I read the article and found this:





That was the first sentence so I wasn't concerned for very long. What I found relieving about that is this is that it's a media illusion. The white supremacist applicants are "claiming" to have been in the military. They have not been confirmed to have been in the military. There is a huge numerical difference between people who "claim" to have served, and the actual number who have served.

My estimation would be that at best one in five of the type who would be applying to a white supremacist organization would lie and "claim" service without ever having joined or having ever served.

One in five of (one in five) reduces significantly the percentage of "those" people applying actually having ever been in the military. Which means that they are falling well short of getting a representative share of adults in our population who have served in the past.

That was a state sponsored mindfuck, that desk diving and cowering business. It was to instill fear into generations of american children and render them Pavlovianly conditioned subjects of the power structure. Even as a child I was thinking wtf, none of this is going to save me from atomic weaponry, it's bullshirt.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

............................. It was to instill fear into generations of american children and render them Pavlovianly conditioned subjects of the power structure. ................

Are you sure that was the point of duck and cover?

 

[H B Lowrey]

Are you sure that was the point of duck and cover?

I don't see how anyone can coherently argue that it was for safety or saving lives. Do you need a moment to review footage of the atomic weaponry of the day going off? Why do you think "commie" is so Pavlovianly sneered so ubiquitously?

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

I don't see how anyone can coherently argue that it was for safety or saving lives. Do you need a moment to review footage of the atomic weaponry of the day going off? Why do you think "commie" is so Pavlovianly sneered so ubiquitously?

Do you need a moment to review the difference between your reaction to something and the point of that same thing?

 

[H B Lowrey]

Do you need a moment to review the difference between your reaction to something and the point of that same thing?

If you'd like to argue that it was about something else, do so.

 

[Port City JJ]

China is the REAL winner of our cold war with Russia (USSR),