Reagan not solely responsible for end of Cold War

As the world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall
of the Berlin Wall, the debate over who deserves credit for ending the
Cold War continues.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• cold war
• berlin wall
• the cold war never ended
• reagan gorbachev
• hero worship
• star wars
• soviet union
• perestroika michael
• moynihan
• reason magazine

[KhmerD0g]

who cares about the fall of the berlin wall. it gonna happen anyway whether it be 1989, 2009 or 3009. bush built the wall of bagdad. it's still up and it will go down.

[SillyGrandpa]

Yesterday, during the celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged the tremendous contribution of the Poles, Lech Walesa and Solidarity and the inspiration that was provided to the East Germans. Hillary Clinton in her impressive speech mentioned the role of John Paul II. Lech Walesa had the honor of pushing the first "domino" in Berlin on the 2oth anniversary of the fall of the wall.

[vandboeffel]

@serbin16m On the contrary South Korea would get a boost to the economy - with the influx of cheap labour and a whole new market. But ofcourse the people from the South would have to economically uphold their northern brothers and sisters in a transisional phase. You can't "slowly" open the borders. People have been crying for freedom for 50 years - they don´t want new Berlin walls. But for the market economy to work efficiently you need free movement of people, money and goods.

[serbin16m]

@vandboeffel Yes you slowly open the borders, slowly but properly privatize the economy of the East, encourage investment and reform and in 5-10 years the economy of East will have caught up to the West, imagine if the DPRK and South Korea united tomorrow, it would be a disaster considering S. Korea is a high tech industrialized market state and the DPRK is a state run, inefficient collectivization agrarian communist state, South Korea would get such a blow to its economy

[vandboeffel]

@serbin16m The problem was that the DDR-production-apparatus was not competitive in a market economy, so either you would have to close the border again to avoid massive emigration, which ofcourse was not politically possible or you would have to put the majority of the former DDR-citizens on welfare checks or you would have to integrate the economies quickly. In a market economy there is no time to wait - and the East Germans were already 50 years behind.

[serbin16m]

@vandboeffel What should have been done was a series of reforms and privatizations across the East no matter how long it would have taken, instead of integrating the economies overnight and watching the East German economy as well as the West German economies suffer

[vandboeffel]

@serbin16m I doubt that it was possible to choose a slow solution. You just cannot have one country with two different economic systems. The only thing to do was a rapid fusion of the countries, and then let government money try to level out the immediate socio-economic problems. Which I think, was what actually was done.

[serbin16m]

The wall in Berlin came down too fast they didnt take the time to accommodate the very different command style economies of Eastern Europe, they simply tore down the wall and united the very different economies, they should have done it slower because not only did the East feel the aftereffects the Germans and the Deutchmark was also hurt by it.

[slr1238]

fact-Ronald Reagan won the cold war.Our children and future generations must learn this truth.The left wing liberal media always lies just like their evil devil hero karl marx.Well karl marx is the opium to the american people.Screw karl marx.i am an independent because i didn't leave the democrat party,they left me.the media people who tell the truth are laura ingraham,michael savage,mark levin,rush limbaugh,sean hannityand glenn beck.beck called reagan the perfect president.Amen!

[v19d]

@Kyderdog Actually the Cold War was really declared by the British. The Iron Curtain speech was a idea given to Churchill by a if you guess right a German War Criminal.

[warriorprince1010]

Reagan and Thatcher did indeed stand up to state slavery [socialism] and defeat it. Millions were freed from slavery as a result. Well done to Thatcher and Reagan.

[RockyBalboa211]

Well Reagan was a contributing factor in the end of the Cold War, Yet Russia contributed to it as well, and the Church contributed in Poland. Overall, Reagan's America outspended Russia and led to its demise in some sorts. Reagan's economic values though are questionable, but overall I blame all the other presidents after him for actually doing nothing substantial to help the economy.