Did Reagan's Real Star Wars Bankrupt the Soviet Union ?
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Did the Real 'Star Wars' Bankrupt the USSR?
In the 1980’s science fact and science fiction looked as if they might become one when the American President Ronald Reagan announced the 'Strategic Defence Initiative' or 'Star Wars' missile defence system. The program was designed to break the nuclear deadlock between the US and Soviets and move beyond the threat of M.A.D. or Mutual Assured Destruction.
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But did the nuclear physicist Edward Teller over-sell the idea to Ronald Reagan and only tell him what he wanted to hear? Even as the world reacted to America's new defence plan, Teller's theories remained decades away from forming a working weapon. So how did just the threat of 'Star Wars' change the world without being put into action?
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Power isn't just what you have, it's what your enemies think you have.
The USSR was not Americas enemy, America was the USSR's enemy by America''s own choice. Just as it is attempting to repeat today.
ArmyOfAll a bold claim to say it was the US who was the aggressor in the Cold War.
Prior to Truman, the USA & Russia got on exceedingly well. It's why a chunk of the fathers of various wealthy american families were able to make a fortune rebuilding the USSR. Had Henry Wallace have been the next president there would have been no cold war. Along with no Hiroshima and no Nagasaki but the democratic party elites of the day in conjunction with the republicans made sure that never happened.
Truman changed all that. He rattled the sabre for the US military corporate complex, he did the bidding of wealth and the wealthy. Ambassador Molotov described the change from FDR to Truman as if someone had flicked a light switch.
The lies continued for decade after decade. JFK elected by scaring the US population over "the missile gap" claiming the USSR had more nukes when in reality they had less than a quarter of the US stock pile at that time, is one example of many.
The Cuban missile crisis, was not the Cuban missile crisis, it was the Turkish missile crisis, missiles stationed in Cuba by USSR was in response to the US stationing nukes in turkey that could hit Moscow from 1957. Moscow had nothing to counter that threat. Cuba helped them force America's hand. After ignoring requests from the USSR for 7 years, the removal of nukes from Turkey was a condition agreed to end the crisis.
Most of what the US accused Russia of both then and now, is done by Russia in response to US policy or is simply manufactured bullshit.
Adding to what ArmyofAll said:
US walked away from the ABM treaty in 2002. This latest news conference with Putin showing the new hyper-sonic intelligent missiles is the direct result of it.
Stop spewing propaganda.
The russians needed something to counter Star Wars?
Haven't they considered Star Trek?
USSR and Star Trek...Not gonna happen.
JonatasAdoM yes they have some a weapons in space along with China but the US is superior in space weapons
Vladimir Trumpin Really? How do you know?
Jose because since we have them then that means russia and China have them or have countermeasures
Actually, USSR was the first country to start "trekking" into space, so I think they had it!
Watched the video in 720, shirt stayed at 144.
try a different shirt.
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Great video, as usual. But you forgot the part when Rocky beat Ivan Drago and ended the Cold War.
LMAO! LOVE IT!! Your comment took me back years! Remembering watching Rocky with my friends, glued to the TV, while the world outside went about the 1980's... How time flies.
I must break you!
Lmao, "everybody can change"
The fight with Drago put us on the right path but I think it was Superman's removal of the world's nuclear arsenal that really solved the issue.
Tetsujin, superman saved us again !!
as usual, shirt is sharp
..or is it blurred?
:))
he tries to blend in to the environment
Outstanding work.
Gorbachev in an interview said that Chernobyl, costing $18 Billion to clean up in 1986 dollars, helped BK the Soviet Union.
Yeah it was a series of dominoes, coincidences, and timings that brought down the Soviet Union, whatever you say or believe a Nation that did what it did is not normal to fall down that easily and fast, it took decades and decades the process of the fall of Rome for example.
The Soviet Afghan war was even more expensive.
US operation to destabilize Soviet Union, it worked, its still working today.
Soviet Union was in crisis mode even since 60es. In fact, Stalin's rule with prisoners and German POW slave labor, was the only period when USSR economy was not in crisis. Perestroika launched by Gorbachev was initially envisioned during Khrushov and the US meddling is exactly why it was postponed for 20 years. Reagan or not, USSR would collapse by its own, and without the Cold War and US the collapse would had happened few decades earlier. All the rest is just Americans trying to take credits for a natural process that would happen irregardless of what US do.
@@cianakril regardless
I’m 71 so I lived through a lot of this stuff up close and personally. This was a fantastic clip. thank you!
This is what CZcams should be about; historical, accurate information. Thanks!
"Reagan's anti-IBM space program bankrupt ussr."
What degree of historical accuracy we're speaking here? Looks more like clickbait to me.
Though this thought on what could fuel Energia-Buran program is interesting.
SteverRob it's called the history channel
What is?
History Channel? You Reality TV Channel. All I ever see on it is American Pickers, Pawn Stars, and reruns of those two shows. Discovery is the same thing, but with Deadliest Catch...
blackrockftw 'zactly
To say that star wars brought down the Soviet Union is way too simplistic. The Soviet economy had been in long term decline before then. This was the result of a number of factors. One being an arms buildup that lasted for over 20 years that comprised thousands of nuclear weapons, conventional land forces and the largest submarine force put to sea after WWII. That coupled with stagnant economic growth domestically and a collapsing oil market in the 80's had more of an effect. At the basic level The USSR like Russia is now, it is a petro state. Gorbachev saw the writing on the wall and realized that they could not afford to get into another arms race with respect to space based weapons which is why he came to the negotiating table. At best it was a contributing factor but not the decisive one that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The infeuding in the pro-communist countries hastened it's demise. Stalin VS Kruschev Kruschev VS Brezhnev Ceausescu VS Brezhnev Mao VS Xiaoping Khalq VS Parcham, etc.
Dennis McIntyre and the power station, don't forget how much it cost to clean up and cover all that mess.
Chernobyl was devastating from an environmental perspective and cost a lot to contain and clean up. But I think its biggest impact was that it sowed distrust among the populace which eroded the governments power. In the end, it was more of a effect and a reflection of the Soviet Union's decline than a cause.
Chernobyl caused Gorbachev to get mad when his own people didn't tell him how bad it was, he found out from Sweden (who picked up the radioactive particles from the exploded core) how bad the situation truly was. That was the start of openness with information. Plus the enormous blow to prestige it was, Pripyat (the nearby town) was a model city with young educated people, a model for the future, and then, boom... and the estimated 18 billion dollar for the cleanup.
What he said.
Through the late 70s and early 80s, my father worked at WHOCA, or White House Communications. They were the team (both civilian and military members) who developed and managed the telecommunications and early networked computerized communications systems for the Executive Branch. As such, my father met many engineers who had worked on other projects, and had been reassigned to their team. One such was an electronics engineer who had worked on a project code-named Steel Helm, a parellel project to SDI which was eventually folded into SDI. Their project was tasked with development of a kinetic-kill projectile fired from a ground-based anti-ballistic missile mobile artillery piece. Using magnetic rail gun technology, the KKP would intercept MIRV warheads after reaching apogee, but before deploying their mutliple warheads from the missile bus, or it could be used to fire upon Soviet bombers that would come across the North Pole. It was meant to be part of an integrated air defense system that could interdict and destroy incoming short-and-medium range warheads or bombers, leaving other parts of the system to focus on ICBMs.
In any case, the point is, my father got to know this engineer quite well, and they used to talk about the initial reactions of the engineers to such a proposal from the president was mix of astonished disbelief at the president's (and his advisors) complete and utter lack of knowledge as to the enormous technical hurdles involved in intercepting a nuclear warhead in midflight.
One of Pres. Reagan's advisors, once being told of the impossibility of interdiction of nuclear warheads, in flight, with such pinpoint precision, said, "Nothing is impossible, if we can land a man on the moon..." at which point, the conference room full of engineers, astrophysicists, aerospace and rocket scientists all burst out laughing, and one of them replied contemptuously, "Landing a man on the moon is simple...The moon is a very large object, moving along a very predictable course. I can tell you where the moon is gonna be, to within a few feet, on any given day, over the next several million years."
*Russia:* "The Senate will Decide Your Fate..."
*United States:* "I AM THE SENATE!!"
Water Malone
Us starts to turn everyone into puppet states*
Not yet
@@randomknight2585 I bet Russia was All like "Wheeew! Thanks, China for *FINALLY* Making Our Communist State Look Great in 2020!" And then Chernobyl Caught on Fire! *_AGAIN!_*
Just your average Crusader it'e treason then
Kenetic Kups *AAAAAAAAA*
they didnt call him ronnie RAY GUN for nothin
I did and still do. Ronnie RAYGUN!
Do either of you have anything intelligent to contribute? I didn't think so ...
I call him Ronnie ban guns, he started banning guns in California as governer, and later banned machine guns as president
Nice pull from that movie.
Teflon Ron. More scandals than all other presidents combined but nothing ever stuck.
I love this channel. Discovered it a week ago, and I love learning about topics like this. Thanks for making great educational content, and wearing nice shirts :D
Cool videos. I've recommended your channel to several of my friends who all love it.
I look forward to seeing more!
This is one of my favorite channels. Didactic and to the point without sacrificing quality. Great work
I worked on that, I recall us technicians laughing as we commented we were in a race to bankruptcy with the Soviet Union. We said . looks like they will beat us by a nose.
Debility to understand victory is to know when it is happened good luck
I was hired out of Engineering College in December '84 by Martin Marietta...I graduated Summa Cum Laude with B.S. Computer Engineering and had a perfect 800 on my SAT math score (which they really liked) and they said they wanted me for the tactical nuke missile program (Pershing I and Pershing II), but it wasn't too long after getting my feet wet that I got moved to a black program that was very compartmentalized...it wasn't until a few years later when I was more Senior that the program was identified as the Reagan Space Based Missile Defense Program (dubbed Star Wars by the "imminently clever" lefty media). I am recently retired and all of the work is still highly classified, but I will say the math and Engineering groundwork we laid was the basis for the newest weapons platforms that have been designed to shoot down nuke ballistic missiles in outer space before they reenter the atmosphere and I would expect are also the jumping off point for designing weapons to shoot down the hypersonic space (atmosphere skipping) missiles that Russia and China are planning to field. I will not comment on our current status in that regard (a recently retired PhD. engineer who worked for America's largest defense contractor). p.s. And yes the Reagan Space based Missile defense program absolutely played a pivotal part in the U.S.S.R. capitulation...we were so far ahead they realized they could never catch up so they waved the white flag...obviously there was more to it then that, but it was extremely pivotal.
Look up the Thor project. It was an on paper proposal to have satellites armed with, basically, crowbars of depleted uranium. Coming in at orbital speeds with minimal guidance, accuracy within a 100 meters. The crater estimated at about 100 meters diameter. Apparently Teller hated the idea, wasn't high tech enough for him and no nukes involved. One can easily imagine what such would do to a column of tanks or a fleet of ships.
Hey buddy just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your videos. You really do a great job explaining your topics with good up to date info. You also do a good job editing your videos and adding in visuals. Keep up the good work!!
Excellent show on Reagan’s Star Wars! You cover so many things I read about many years ago, like nuke lasers and the Venturestar. Thank you for your show!
I saw a pbs program where Teller said the technology simply wasn't their. Reagan was the ultimate poker player!
He was a demented two bit actor with Alzheimer's...
@@jimmcfarland3446 it ended badly but your ignorance of reality is stunning!
It wasn't just star wars. Gorbachev was smart enough to know that while the us was only spending 6-7 % of gnp Gorb... was spending 19-24 % AND
STILL THEY COULD NOT HANG
Reagan was somewhat of an idealist. He wasn't a brilliant mind, but he had strong principles and you always knew where he stood.
@@jimmcfarland3446 He also had the highest approval rating of any president in history.
There was an AWFUL LOT more to the American Star Wars project than you describe. It was not just a Space Laser, but a huge layered system that was under development at the various National Labs attempting to track, intercept and destroy the ICBMs at various stages in their trajectory.
Interesting story: After the USSR had dissolved and things had settled out somewhat politically, the remnant staff of the Brilliant Pebbles Program (Star Wars) actually met with Russian Scientists who were attempting to hawk their big rockets and moon rovers to us. The poor country was starving. It was sad and incredibly ironic.
Honestly, it was bound to happen. Communism doesnt really produce, rather it pretty much takes. Russians are great people but communism is shitty. Im just glad russia isnt communist anymore.
Anyone who says communism is a failure hasn’t payed attention to China. How many trillions of dollars of US debt do they hold? How large is their trade surplus to the US? What rank are they in global economy? Where is the industrial and technological centre of the world right now?
Oh and you talk about freedom. The US doesn’t have freedom, it has the illusion of freedom. It has far more incarcerated people than China does. It can take you at will without charges or trial and hold you indefinitely at GITMO or have the CIA send you on an extraordinary rendition. You think your AR-15 will protect you from drone strikes or a special team that will take you out when you’re sleeping?
And of course, the only reason the USA has a manned space program is because of the Soviets. The US had to give up their manned space program because of chronically insolvent governments that have the US owing over 100% of its GDP in debt.
There’s lots of things bad about communism... but to call it a failure is a stretch. The Russians fail at everything. They failed at a monarchy just like they are failing at democracy.
@@calvinnickel9995 China is a state owned (where the name 'communist' comes from) capitalist economic system. Also yes, the US is more free than China lol. There is no freedom of expression, no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, and no right to a fair civil trial in China. China has a 99% conviction rate, meaning you are charged with a crime 99% of the time you're arrested. Not to mention the police is used as a arm of the CCP political party targeting people who politically oppose the government. All of the media is completely controlled by the CCP that published their propaganda.
This is ignoring all of the horrid violations of humans rights they've committed. The concentration camps full of Muslims and Uyghars. MILLIONS, against their will based on their ethnicity and religion. Then there's suppression of protestors, not just in Hong Kong, but in 1989 in Tiananmen Square, the CCP sent the military to violently suppress unarmed and non-violent STUDENTS (literally school students). They shot machine guns into crowds, ran over unarmed protestors with tanks and trucks, casualties numbering from hundreds to thousands. Oh yeah and then there's the government controlled black organ market that steals organs from prisoners.
@@honkhonk8009 Well that didn't age well. LOL. (No offense)
@@calvinnickel9995 Oh bloody hell ... China isn't pure communism. They don't prescribe to state ownership of enterprise.
They are successful in combining authoritarianism with pure naked capitalism.
So yes, communism as Lenin and Marx imagined it, was a failure.
Oh, and we have more incarcerated people BECAUSE of freedom. You are free to make stupid ass decisions ... and the state is free to revoke your freedom from said decisions.
fascinating as ever! keep up the good work
One of the best channels CZcams has to offer, props!
You need a "Buy this episode's shirt" link with a sponsor lmfao
Great video also usual
Thanks for the thorough video. I have watched several of your videos & enjoy all of them. Keep up the good work. You I jus subscribed...
Always enjoying your videos, Thank you!
What crushed USSR is the combination of Tchernobyl, the war in Afghanistan and an economic crisis which began on the seventies
I enjoyed the video! Keep it up!
Awesome video! First time I've seen a video that's covered the specific topic so in depth, especially with the desperate Soviet reaction!
Excellent, as always. Thank you.
Whoah, this system is MAD
Leon Trotsky Aren't you too busy dodging Stalin's goons in Mexico to leave snazzy CZcams comments?
Oh. Sorry. My bad. It's not easy keeping up with the fast pace of news, here in 1940.
Comrade, I got sick of Stalin's assassination attempts on me, so I faked my own death. I then cryogenically froze myself using the finest Soviet technology and was woken up in 2016 The USSR Collapsed, and I am searching how so I can restart it, without the mistakes.
Leon Trotsky How can you revive yourself after having an ice pick jammed into your brain? I believe that scrambles your eggs so to speak.
I told you, He died, I faked my own death.
God I hate communists.
Love your videos! Keep up the great work.
..prob one of the best channels on the platform.. Another great video, as usual..
You make some of the best videos. Thank you
Wow, I never realised that the character, Dr. Strangelove was actually based on Edward Teller...
Thanks for another great video Curious!
--S
I think there's more to this story. The direction of the SDI program was believed by the Soviets to be a defensive system. To counter the Russians invested a lot of money into advanced radar. This was an expensive task. Furthermore, the Soviet Union needed a lot of these radars to span across their 11 Time Zones. To implement it would have cost the Soviets about 135% of their GDP. Yes they went bankrupt on this development. During this time Reagan also got the Saudi's to expand oil production. Since the Soviet Union depended on their oil exports, those dried up. The clincher was we weren't really developing a defensive system. Even the military came out years later and admitted that some of these test were staged. So with the Soviets inventing heavily into radar, the US was developing stealth aircraft to if the Soviets were successful, they would have an obsolete system by the time they were finished. This is why we never did get a true defensive system. But we did get the stealth aircraft.
You have a great collection of shirts! And also, great video as usual! Keep it up, you're already one of my favorite CZcamsrs
Glad i found your channel, keep it up
It's often claimed that CCCP failed because it bankrupted itself trying to compete with the west, a competition it could not afford. That's just not a valid description of how CCCP operated, at all. And it's even less valid description of why it collapsed or why it didn't collapse any earlier. Gorbachev pulled back hardline policies and allowed for more civic liberties, that was really all it took to start people thinking of independence. The moment Kreml was distracted with august putsch, Baltic states and others took the chance and ran with it. Economic considerations never really played a role at all, a chance to declare independence without getting shot is what mattered.
The very name "Soviet Union" is an oxymoron, it was never an union of like minded states, it was plain and simple Russian occupation of states in its sphere of influence.
@schmuck Norris Again, "bankruptcy" wasn't a factor in consideration in collapse of CCCP and failes to describe the situation anyway. Money was never a factor. At the end there was deficit of goods, what it meant is that everybody had enough money, but there was just nothing to buy from stores, the goods were not there, you had no way to spend the money you had. A rationing scheme was introduced, so everybody got sufficient food but beyond that.... It wasn't money that was the currency in the union, it was who you were, if you were a party member, if you worked in a position that enabled you to steal lots of useful shit, who you knew to trade your stolen crap against their stolen crap, that's what mattered and what set your quality of life, not money. The entire union ran on who could steal more, that's why barely anything could be bought at stores, everything was stolen before it made it there.
Now when Moscow got distracted and people started thinking of independence, the expectation was fully that breaking away would make the economic situation even worse, frankly large parts of the population expected to starve as a result. We fucking declared independence anyway because it was finally the chance to get away. Now, nobody actually starved as a result, but we absolutely did start out piss poor, first monthly wages in independent Estonia were on the order of few hundred krones, if you were to exchange it to USD it would have been 20-30USD, per month. The industries and factories that existed from soviet times were quickly introduced to the novel and uncomfortable concept of "competitiveness" and realized they had none compared to rest of the world, most of them shut down pretty fast, some survived reorganizations and privatizations and actually made it in the end, but most didn't.
So yeah, the first independent years were not exactly comfortable economically, but it paid off handsomely in the end. Well, for most countries it did, few have gotten nowhere in three decades of being independent, Moldova to bring an example.
The greed and self-interest culture that Mrs Thatcher and Mr Reagan promoted was widely liked in many parts of the world including the Soviet Union. Not liked in the UK by a minority. On the other hand, both President and Prime Minister got on well with Mr Gorbachov but evidently did not have the will or power to put out the hand of kindness rather than a threat to our WW2 allie.
Missile command one of my favorite all-time old school arcade games.
Excellent as always.
amazing video you have a great way of telling stories
The best thing that Gorbatchev did, was to let the end of the Soviet Union be largely without bloodshed.
It could have been much much worse.
open wars in quite a few republics - Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia vs Chechnya, murderous Yeltsin with his tanks in Moscow. millions and millions dying due to their reforms and the outrageous plunder in all branches of the economy. tens of thousands destroyed factories, dead towns. and this massive destruction is going on. what the hell are you talking about with this "largely without bloodshed"? the best thing for Gorbachev to do is to live long enough so that we, the people of the former USSR, bring him to justice. him and all his accomplices including those still in power.
Gorbatchev was a worthless degenerate commie like the rest of them.
@@jan_kisan My grandmother heard gorbachev give the speech where he banged his shoe on the podium. Did he really say the soviets would bury us? (USA) If so Gorbachev is winning right now
@@mountainmamma1643 of Gorbachov is a commie for you, you know nothing about commies.
@@timbrwolf1121 that was Khrushyov. and what do you mean by ”he is winning”?
The implications of this video bother me. Nothing is technically wrong, but I see little connection between the USSR's over reaction to the "Star Wars" threat and its eventual collapse. Seems to me like Gorbachov's reforms would have ended the Soviet Union anyway.
Clearly, the soviets were struggling economically, and trying to keep up with the US on all military fronts was not helping that. It's not correct to say SDI single handedly ended the Soviet Union. But it was an element of the challenge, and the challenge on the whole was the impetus for Gorbachov to make the changes he did.
Star Wars didn't cause the collapse, it caused them to give up the fight as hopeless.
Gorbavhov enherited a dying state. No reforms needed for it to collapse.
The whole point of said reforms was next to ending the USSR. All countries of the Warsaw Pact were struggling in greater and greater economic problems as the system was heavily flawed from the beginning. Gorbachev was consulting possibilities with Poland's dictator, general Jaruzelski, who at first attempted to get control over the situation by enforcing Martial Law, but realised it can't go on forever and allowed liberal economists to introduce reforms that were practically a treason of communist ideas, and then decided to transform the political system into a democratic one through so called 'clutching process' which meant gradual giving up power by communists to make sure they wouldn't be hanged. Anyway in the late 80ies in Poland it was easier to set up a private company than it is now. Gorbachev used the Polish experiment as an example to encourage Soviet party members in the USSR to follow such, as effective, possible to execute, nor meaning a death sentence for the commies, and necessary. ( Jaruzelski's secreatary comrade Gòrecki wrote in the 80's some Polish commie leaders were saying 'Have you chosen your tree already?' instead of 'Good day' , as they believed the anti-communist opposition will have them all killed if they don't do something.
Well it's simple.. Russia thought the U.S had technologies they didn't.
Thus, Russia dumped billions of dollars into it's military and defenses trying to catch up to what Russia "thought" America had.
However Russia went broke because they was attempting to catch technologies that didn't yet exist.
Boom...
You make amazing content ...... Keep at it you are doing a wonderful job and this will take off eventually.
Great doco, many thanks! :)
A Great History Lesson! Thank you!
I don't want to buy a t-shirt, I want to buy the shirt you're wearing.
Wtf... Why do you want to buy his sweaty shirt?
Love your historical vids.
I Enjoy your videos brotha, Very informative!
i remember seeing the empty shops on the news, was too young to understand at the time though. all i knew about the reds was OO7 movies.
I am from the Czech Republic and while I was not yet alive during that time, they teach you thoroughly what it was like pre'89. The empty shops were sort of a symbol. There were newscasts in the TV about what essentials were missing from the shelves (toilet paper, bananas etc.). Costumers were waiting for those in huge lines. There was a quite a big (sort of) shadow market selling useless stuff from western Germany (called Tuzex, middlemen working for them were then rich af).
Thing is, they also tried to plan every part of the economy (even agriculture output) for every 5 years into the future. Which is kinda cool for super large scale projects like aerospace, but super bad for the day to day economies of your average citizen because the production has no immediate way to react on supply and demand surges or shortages.
And today when you see stuff that is happening in the ultra socialist countries like Venezuela, or sometimes (I know this is a stretch) what certain far left or right parties in the US want... well you know what they say, history can repeat itself.
I'm from Russia. I was born in USSR 1975 in middle-sized City north from Moscow. I remember late Soviet Union with communist propaganda and empty stores. There were almost nothing to buy if you was not a "right man" with right contacts. If you want to have more choice of food - you have to visit Moscow or Leningrad. I remember long queries in my City to shop to buy sugar. With order numbers wrote on the hand. Then in 1990s everything get worse. No food, no money. But there was only one way to get out from soviet powerty. Now people dreamed of USSR facing difficulties of real life. I think they are wrong. I hope it will be no more USSR.
It always shocks me to think that a country who could hold such military might and do such incredible work both in space and in the sciences couldn't stock stores with food. Being born in 1963, I will tell you we never knew shortages outside of gas rationing in the mid 70's. My grandmother worked at Sears, so when we bought our house in '67, much of what we furnished it with came from there.
Since the early 90's I've met a number of people who came from eastern bloc countries, and they never want to talk about how it was there.
Oldbmwr i think they bankrupted themselved trying to keep up with US military spending.
Did not bankrupted. It was a misbelief. A myth's crash. People believed in enemies around. And try to buid a better society. Not reigans SOI destroyed USSR. A Coca-Cola bottle and empty stores does.
Nice Minecart texture t-shirt.
It’s been 2 years now. I hope you’ve had enough time to realize that it’s not a t-shirt.
highly informative, well delivered, entertaining
You are just the best at what you do. Thanks for the the vids and the shirts...
ED TELLER SHOULD HAVE ASKED REAGAN TO INVEST IN A PROGRAM TO DEVELOP AN EYEBROW TRIMMER
He was working on a nuclear-powered monobrow incubator. Monobrows could then be grown to gigantic size.
I would have asked Dr. Teller how to use nuclear waste products in an uber-future-reactor. That way, the Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disasters would be an opportunity for business. (Instead of having to keep a nervous watch on the Chernobyl "Elephant's foot" and TEPCO's "Frozen earth/radioactive groundwater circus.")
4:52 "How I'm I suppossed to get any place the russianseffeki dying on me" - Ronald Regan
Superbly interesting video. Great!
this is such a great channel !
star wars program should go on. i want more technology to stay alive. soviets and other groups are better to make achievements.
love the shirt
I really like this channel! Great stuff, Phil!
Very informative video, I love your channel. Thank you.
Even if it was Bravado; it was a brilliant a bluff and well worth it at a perfect time!
Larry Niven said, they only have to THINK that we were developing the weapons.
Precisely.
indeed
Where did he say that? I read many of his books and I don't remember that.
Thermonuclear Poker basically.
Does not matter if I have a royal flush, Only that my actions and expressions make the rest of the table make decisions based on me having one.
If the US thought that China was going to Mars it would get its act together to beat them there. Someone, please whisper that in Trumps ear! :-)
Great job again.
I love your channel, because you respect your viewers. Unlike most other uploaders, you don't fill your videos with drivel, self-aggandisement, hyperbole, personal opinions, lengthy intros and outros, and social commentary.
7th. If you don't try to invent it, you never will invent it.
Capitalism > Communism/Socialism. Innovation will always thrive better in the capitalism system. Why? Money & a better standard of living. It’s not rocket science.
Great video my friend.
Excellent video!
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, those were the days...!!!!!
I've have a piece of the Berlin wall ...... ✌
Brilliant video again!
Love your videos ......great job!
Could you do about Buran - Energia please 😀
"Edward Teller" must be the least Hungarian-sounding Hungarian name of all time.
Pointless gimmicky username his actual hun name is Teller Ede a Jewish hun name
His name in Hungary was Teller Ede, using the Hungarian naming order.
I was in a super-advanced 4-year course of AP high school science classes with his grandkids (only the final 2 years of the 4-year course carried AP credit, to be clear), they were like minor celebrities in that context. 🙂 We’d look at Astro or Eric and nudge each other and whisper “Duuuuude … the atomic bomb!!!” It must’ve driven them crazy, poor guys.*
*Poor guys who are both now billionaires, that is.
Great Vid!
Thanks for the history lesson. Incredible.
So refreshing to hear a scientific and accurate presentation of these events instead of the "communism bad" we get in North America.
It just didnt worked out, because the stormtroopers Always missed
Another fassinating video Thank You
i love your videos, you deserve at least a million more subs than you have rn
I lived through the 1970s and 1980s in western Europe and i'm glad the cold war is over. But i'm not sure the present condition in the world is better.
its better,but maybe not for you or me.
I am not sure you are mentally fit. Are you sure you do not have TDS. Go back to the DSA meeting and tell them you have been potted as a DSA troll. Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
EKRANOPLANS PLEASE!!!
King Of Da Noobs
He made that video
Great video
I love this channel. Liked, subed and shared!
The idea that the arms race "bankrupted" the USSR completely ignores half of the equation.
You can spend a billion dollars per day, and NEVER go bankrupt, if you also earn a billion dollars per day.
On the other hand, you can go bankrupt spending only one dollar per day, if you make less than that.
The US went into massive debt over the 80s arms race as well. But it was less debt, and more importantly, the debt was MUCH lower when compared to the overall economy.
No particular spending broke the USSR. They simply didn't produce enough of anything to sustain any type of spending. Communism/socialism fails every time, because it reduces productivity to below sustainable levels. Every. Single. Time.
Before clicking the Read More button I thought, "DOES the USSR earn a billion a day?"
That, and one cold Summer means no rutabagas to eat. The US is in a huge temperate zone, the USSR was quite-nearly Arctic.
Not China though
Watching nations not exploiting others. Capitalism. Fails. Every. Single. Time.
There was a range of factors that caused the USSR to expend its reserves and become 'bankrupt'.
They were lured into a costly war in Afghanistan that the USA wanted to make into "the USSR's Vietnam'.
The price of oil was deliberately crashed, which hurt Soviet oil exports. One of their primary sources of income.
The Chernobyl Disaster cost hundreds of billions.
WTO trade rules limited the USSR's access to export markets, while their access to credit was also very limited (The USA can put 20 trillion on credit to fund wars etc. USSR could not).
The USA spent billions promoting nationalism among member states of the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries, which caused expensive instability.
The 1980s saw an accelerated arms race that went well beyond 'Star Wars". The USSR diverted funds from social spending to pay for it. That caused yet more instability. Reagan is on record as saying he wanted to "outspend the USSR into oblivion".
The USSR was supporting too many client states in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, while the USA was constantly trying to change their regimes. This was very expensive for the USSR.
When the USSR needed funds the only place it could get them was the IMF and World Bank. Conditions for the loans stipulated that the USSR must liberalize sectors of its economy. That meant privatization of the very assets that created public wealth in the USSR, which caused even more pressure on budgets (A socialist system depends on public ownership of the heights of the economy, rather than taxation of private enterprise as in the West). The empty supermarket shelves etc we see in videos occurred after this market liberalization, not before. Any Russian will tell you that the hard years came after privatization, not before.
The USA greased the palms of Soviet officials with billions of dollars. USSR had a referendum and the vote to continue the USSR and socialist system was the clear winner. The result was ignored by the politicians. Many ex-Soviet citizens resent Gorbachev to this day for not honouring that vote. Yeltsin illegally disbanded the communist majority parliament, which nearly resulted in civil war. He was able to rule by decree after that. So much for freedom and democracy under capitalism.
This list is not comprehensive, but just points out some of the factors. We can not sum it all up with a single cause like Star Wars or that communism does not work etc. Given this set of circumstances and some very inept and often corrupt leadership, the system could not stand. To say it does not work is to turn a blind eye to history though.
Aquila Rossa commies are mad. Sorry bro
If it only works in concept, then it doesn't work.
"but we have never tried REAL communism"
we tried socialism, which was only intended to be the step between capitalism and communism...therefore
REEEEEEEEE indeed, these cappies doesn't understand anything
Libertarian Leninist Rants that's worked out well for Venezuela.
because venezuela is sooo socialist with its huge private sector
This guy is too good! he has always super interesting videos! I wonder where he gets his footage from
Good video. I was a young airman in the USAF at the time so this vid hits home for me. I hope this teaches younger people about Reagan the USSR and our history.
The video didn’t really answer the question in the title...
Great episode. Yes America won the cold war finally by out spending the USSR. And the rest is history.
Let hope they win the 2nd cold war.
super00su What second cold war?
What about outspending itself?
Jeff Kardos Jr. America outspends "itself" year after year. That is why our national debt is so high.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_II
Great films here. Thank you.
The brink of eternity documentary shortened to 10 minutes. Thank you.
fast as fuck
Short answer: no.
As the Kremlin declassifies more and more documents from the former USSR, what’s become apparent is that Reagan’s pointless (and expensive) saber-rattling if anything _prolonged_ the Soviet hardliners’ rule.
It lent credence to their fears that if they loosened their grip, and implemented liberalizing reforms, they would lose power completely. Thus, the more Reagan made noise, the further Gorbachev’s intended reforms kept getting delayed and delayed.
Unsurprisingly, Reagan’s technical understanding of “Star Wars,” or more properly, the SDI, was nonexistent. (George Lucas himself asked that Reagan stop calling it Star Wars, and threatened legal action, so the program was thereafter referred to by the White House by its real name, the “Strategic Defense Initiative.”) Reagan’s more rational advisors knew better than he did, that the SDI would never work, and through back channels told their Soviet counterparts as much. Soon thereafter the Kremlin hardliners settled down, then Gorbachev was able to implement his reforms, and the rest is history. Aside from his being remembered for running up the biggest deficit in the USA’s history, Reagan’s hardliner cockup and SDI nonsense was largely forgotten … at least until some right-wingers started peddling their revisionist history. (And I seem to recall George W. Bush, another genius, wanting to revive the SDI.)
The USSR’s space shuttle was not a response to SDI vaporware, but to the real threat of the USA’s space shuttle being used to capture Soviet satellites and bring them back to Earth. You literally already made a video about that!
This is an unusually poorly researched video from you. All the insider Kremlin documents - detailing the hardliners clamping down in reaction to Reagan, then loosening up again once Reagan’s own advisors undercut him, leading to Gorbachev being able to open up the country - have been widely reported on already as each batch of documents was declassified! This knowledge is literally one Google search away!! What happened?
Excellent background music.
Good presentation.