DH> You are exactly right, and on this issue, I don't believe that you are
DH> in the minority. I believe that Reagan's insistence on a strong
DH> military, and a foreign policy which didn't back down to the Soviets,
DH> as a minimum, hastened their downfall, by forcing the Soviets to expen
DH> resources on defense which could have been spent on other things.
 
       I believe the cost to the United States was greater than the
results achieved.  With or without adding $3 trillion to the national
debt, I remain convinced that the Soviet Union would have collapsed
ecconomically.  It almost did in 1977 and was saved only by the Carter
administration with the most massive sale of grain in world history.
In 1979 the USSR was back, buying more grain, and in almost as bad a
shape as before.  
       Communism is a flawed ecconomic system that cannot sustain
itself and was destined to fail.  With Soviet forces engaged in
Afghanistan, Cuba and eastern europe requiring continuing subsidies and
a massive military presence to prop up unpopular governments, and with
Soviet technology falling off steeply as the aging German scientists
from World War II died off, the USSR was falling to pieces.  
       With or without taking ourselves to the verge of bankruptcy it
was breathing it's last gasps and crumbling from within. 
                    
                                                   Mike Angwin
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