Which Cold War President's Foreign Policy was the Worst? The Best?

[Thunderbird]

Lyndon Johnson's foreign policy was the worst and Ronald Reagan's the best.

Sun Tzu wrote “An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness.”

Johnson - Giap avoided America's strength (massive firepower) and struck at America's weakness (fickle public support).

Check out the video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4PZExLyv0"]Sun Tzu tactics used in Vietnam War 1/3[/ame]

Douglas MacArthur was right to urge the United States to avoid land wars in Asia.

Reagan - Reagan avoided the Soviet's strength (massive army in Europe) and struck at the Soviet's weaknesses (a failing economy and outdated technology).

Reagan successfully bankrupted the Soviet Empire.

President Ronald Reagan: Winning the Cold War

As in the Cold War, Russia Is Vulnerable on Energy

 

[oldfart]

For my two cents the best was Ike. In eight full years we came nowhere near a shooting war with the exception of the one he was elected on a promise to end in Korea. No nuclear brinksmanship. He got NATO launched and pushed Europe into true collective defense. It's really hard to find much to be critical of in Ike's foreign policy with the exception of his Secretary of State and CIA chief, the Dulles brothers, whose cloned love child turned out to be Dick Cheney. Ike was wrong, Earl Warren was not his worst appointment.

As for the worst, I'll hold my water. If the Cold War period is officially ended in 1992, no one from Clinton on is eligible. It's easy to dump on Truman, but overall he did a pretty good job. Same with Nixon, Ford wasn't in long enough to screw up badly, Carter is another mixed bag, GHWB did OK and that leaves Reagan. RR screwed up a lot, but I can't bring myself to pan him. No matter how mediocre we regard American foreign policy since WWII, it was a collective effort and I don't see anyone who was all that bad at it.

And I still like Ike.

 

[Thunderbird]

And I still like Ike.

Good choice.

 

[williepete]

Ike.

 

[BlackFlag]

 

[regent]

The problem with Ike was that McCarthy believed him to lean toward communism. True, McCarthy believed that all but a few Americans leaned toward communism, but in the long run was Ike trustworthy?

 

[williepete]

The problem with Ike was that McCarthy believed him to lean toward communism. True, McCarthy believed that all but a few Americans leaned toward communism, but in the long run was Ike trustworthy?

You might find reading Ike's "Crusade in Europe" helpful in answering your question. You'll get to know him first hand and see how he dealt with critical situations requiring trust on almost a superhuman level. I only have two small problems with his narrative but came away overwhelmingly impressed.

 

[whitehall]

FDR was elected about the same time Hitler came into power in Germany. FDR did nothing but pester Germany for it's WW1 financial responsibility while Hitler was planning world domination and Japan was flexing it's Bushido craziness. The Brits were shocked that the US had no espionage network in place prior to WW2.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The Détente with the Soviet Union of Nixon and Carter.

 

[Meathead]

The Détente with the Soviet Union of Nixon and Carter.

Yeah, that worked so well with the invasion of Afghanistan. Detente was a naive policy which resuscitated the Soviet Union for another decade. In the end Reagan sensed and directly exploited the unraveling.

 

[Moonglow]

Reagan is not the only reason the Soviets failed..

Defense costs, furthermore, were eating up an inordinate portion of Soviet expenditures. Because of the difficulty in measuring the Soviet GNP it was not always clear what percentage was being spent to this end. Experts now claim the West routinely underestimated the numbers. It is now believed that in years just prior to 1991 as much as 30 percent of the economy went toward the defense sector putting an enormous burden on the average citizen in terms of delayed consumer satisfaction. Then there were the costs incurred by shoring up overseas adventures such as those in Africa, not to mention the drain of the war in Afghanistan and the expense involved in maintaining Castro's lifeline.

But all of this is preliminary to asking and attempting to answer what clearly has become the hottest and most ideologically-fraught issue pertaining to the close of the Cold War, namely the extent to which America's acceleration of the arms race impacted the Soviet Union so as to hasten her fall from power.

The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Whys And Wherefores

 

[oldfart]

Reagan is not the only reason the Soviets failed..

Defense costs, furthermore, were eating up an inordinate portion of Soviet expenditures. Because of the difficulty in measuring the Soviet GNP it was not always clear what percentage was being spent to this end. Experts now claim the West routinely underestimated the numbers. It is now believed that in years just prior to 1991 as much as 30 percent of the economy went toward the defense sector putting an enormous burden on the average citizen in terms of delayed consumer satisfaction. Then there were the costs incurred by shoring up overseas adventures such as those in Africa, not to mention the drain of the war in Afghanistan and the expense involved in maintaining Castro's lifeline.

But all of this is preliminary to asking and attempting to answer what clearly has become the hottest and most ideologically-fraught issue pertaining to the close of the Cold War, namely the extent to which America's acceleration of the arms race impacted the Soviet Union so as to hasten her fall from power.

The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Whys And Wherefores

I attended graduate school in the late 60s on a national Defense Education Act fellowship doing work on the Soviet economy (I was tasked to labor force and population analysis). The program was funded through the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for East European Studies and involved scholars and graduate students at about 50 institutions. I got free trips to a few symposia as part of the deal and met a fair number of researchers.

The consensus at the time was that we did not understand what kept the Soviet economy from collapsing. Our estimates 1968--1972 were that almost 40% of GDP went to the military, space program, security services, intelligence services, targeted foreign aid for geopolitical influence, propping up dependent states, and the heavy industry to support these ventures. Most of this could not be diverted easily to consumer or light industry or other "normal" economic development. It was a deadweight economic loss, drag on the economy, and incredibly inefficient. The Soviet economy was in short perceived as a hollow shell grinding itself into dust.

Later we learned that we were basically correct. From the early 70s the Soviet economy was inevitably doomed, it could not continue on its then-current path without a collapse. Glasnost and perestroika were not enough. What tipped it over the edge was the public reaction to the nuclear catastrophe shown in real time on Soviet television, the body bags coming back from Afganistan, fall in life expectancy, and the complete exhaustion of the Soviet peoples who no longer had any hope. It was an existential collapse and it was total.

Did American policy have anything to do with that collapse? I would argue not much. There was very little we could do that would accelerate the decline and nothing we could do to reverse it. Ultimately every society must determine it's reason for surviving. As the Soviet generations that had believed in Revolution, or in the necessity of the Great Patriotic War died out, the generation rising behind them had little stomach for the sacrifices of their fathers. And for good reason. No people should suffer what the Soviet peoples suffered 1917--1953.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me and welcome a robust debate on the issues, but I would have one request.

Please have the decency to understand that the Soviet peoples did nothing to "deserve" the hell they went through. They did not dictate the terms at Versailles that triggered German revanchism; they did not create the international order that reinstituted the colonial system, and they were not the authors of the economic system which so disastrously failed in 1928--1933. But they did absorb 80% of the casualties and ruin it took to defeat Nazism while America and Britain stood by unable or unwilling to bear more than a token effort for almost five years.

Without the sacrifices of the Soviet peoples, America today would likely have jackbooted skinheads wearing swastika armbands marching in the streets. No, wait........

 

[Meathead]

Reagan is not the only reason the Soviets failed..

Defense costs, furthermore, were eating up an inordinate portion of Soviet expenditures. Because of the difficulty in measuring the Soviet GNP it was not always clear what percentage was being spent to this end. Experts now claim the West routinely underestimated the numbers. It is now believed that in years just prior to 1991 as much as 30 percent of the economy went toward the defense sector putting an enormous burden on the average citizen in terms of delayed consumer satisfaction. Then there were the costs incurred by shoring up overseas adventures such as those in Africa, not to mention the drain of the war in Afghanistan and the expense involved in maintaining Castro's lifeline.

But all of this is preliminary to asking and attempting to answer what clearly has become the hottest and most ideologically-fraught issue pertaining to the close of the Cold War, namely the extent to which America's acceleration of the arms race impacted the Soviet Union so as to hasten her fall from power.

The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Whys And Wherefores

I attended graduate school in the late 60s on a national Defense Education Act fellowship doing work on the Soviet economy (I was tasked to labor force and population analysis). The program was funded through the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for East European Studies and involved scholars and graduate students at about 50 institutions. I got free trips to a few symposia as part of the deal and met a fair number of researchers.

The consensus at the time was that we did not understand what kept the Soviet economy from collapsing. Our estimates 1968--1972 were that almost 40% of GDP went to the military, space program, security services, intelligence services, targeted foreign aid for geopolitical influence, propping up dependent states, and the heavy industry to support these ventures. Most of this could not be diverted easily to consumer or light industry or other "normal" economic development. It was a deadweight economic loss, drag on the economy, and incredibly inefficient. The Soviet economy was in short perceived as a hollow shell grinding itself into dust.

Later we learned that we were basically correct. From the early 70s the Soviet economy was inevitably doomed, it could not continue on its then-current path without a collapse. Glasnost and perestroika were not enough. What tipped it over the edge was the public reaction to the nuclear catastrophe shown in real time on Soviet television, the body bags coming back from Afganistan, fall in life expectancy, and the complete exhaustion of the Soviet peoples who no longer had any hope. It was an existential collapse and it was total.

Did American policy have anything to do with that collapse? I would argue not much. There was very little we could do that would accelerate the decline and nothing we could do to reverse it. Ultimately every society must determine it's reason for surviving. As the Soviet generations that had believed in Revolution, or in the necessity of the Great Patriotic War died out, the generation rising behind them had little stomach for the sacrifices of their fathers. And for good reason. No people should suffer what the Soviet peoples suffered 1917--1953.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me and welcome a robust debate on the issues, but I would have one request.

Please have the decency to understand that the Soviet peoples did nothing to "deserve" the hell they went through. They did not dictate the terms at Versailles that triggered German revanchism; they did not create the international order that reinstituted the colonial system, and they were not the authors of the economic system which so disastrously failed in 1928--1933. But they did absorb 80% of the casualties and ruin it took to defeat Nazism while America and Britain stood by unable or unwilling to bear more than a token effort for almost five years.

Without the sacrifices of the Soviet peoples, America today would likely have jackbooted skinheads wearing swastika armbands marching in the streets. No, wait........

There were no "Soviet peoples" and they should have held off for another year before invading Normandy. Of course, hindsight is everything.

 

[Thunderbird]

Reagan is not the only reason the Soviets failed..

Of course this is true. Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, John Paul II, Vaclav Havel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, etc. - each played an important role. Most vital, millions of ordinary people stood up to Communist dictatorships. I am only saying Reagan's foreign policy was the best in the Cold War era.

Another quote from the article you linked to:

But much can be said for Reagan's Evil Empire speech, not to mention the decision to employ Pershing missiles in Europe, as attention-getting wakeup calls to the Soviet leadership. Edwin Meese, attorney general and close confident of Ronald Reagan, argues in his Reagan-era memoir that the Russian leadership, before and after the arrival of Gorby'achev, became convinced that Reagan's pedal-to-the-metal arms' buildup, particularly is proclaimed interest in the Strategic Defense Initiative or, as proclaimed by foes in the press and Congress, "Star Wars," would lead to further disruption in the Soviet economy. In order to keep up and build their own or a similar project economic bankruptcy might well ensue.

Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institute Fellow, has devoted an entire book, to demonstrating how decisive Reagan's anti-Communist strategy was in bringing down the "Evil Empire." While much of the book amounts to a celebration of William Casey's ability to strike a blow at the enemy via his fabled access to Reagan and his CIA leadership prerogatives (constant trips throughout the world on a secret black-painted CIA airliner are highlighted), it nevertheless develops a credible scenario, if not for the single-handed toppling of the Soviet Union, at least for providing a push sufficient to help tumble it into history's much remarked upon dustbin.

To Schweizer, Casey, always with Reagan's imprimatur to back him up, is able to work wonders, in some cases simply through his banking and big business contact. He is able, for example, to quash low-interest loans to the Soviets; to clamp down on the export of Western technology the Russians are employing to maintain their crumpling industrial base; to make it tougher for the Russians to complete a huge natural gas pipeline that would, if ever properly completed, provide them with much-needed Western hard currency; and finally through astute jawboning and clever parceling out of quid pro quos in the form of military intelligence and high-tech weaponry to strategic allies, especially the Saudis, the United States is able to convince the latter to substantially increase oil production and thus in one blow enhance the American economy by reducing oil prices while concurrently devastating the Soviet Union's major source of income, namely their export of petroleum.

This American-induced drop in oil prices also makes it more difficult for purchasers of Soviet arms such as Iraq, Iran, and Libya to continue their brisk acquisition of high-tech Soviet weaponry, thus leading to a further diminishment of Soviet income. Furthermore, large planned industrial projects such as a Renault car factory, two British chemical plants, and the purchase of Japanese and U.S. machinery are forced to be scrapped for lack of hard currency.

But it's the specter of SDI that apparently had become a major fixation in the minds of both the Soviet strategic defense hierarchy as well as Gorbyachev himself. Not only do Reagan defenders point this out, but much of the evidence stems from reports provided by the Russian leaders themselves. From wiley old Andrei Gromyko to highly-ranked Soviet army officers to KGB officials, the assumption early on was that it was Reagan's intent to wreck the Soviet economy on the shoals of the arms race.

And to Gorbyachev it was becoming increasingly clear that in order to reform the Soviet economy it first would be necessary to reduce substantially the enormous expenditure going to their military-industrial complex. In fact, the impromptu Iceland Summit in 1986 in large measure centered on Gorbyachev's attempt to convince Reagan of the importance of scrapping SDI.

One theory is that following Khrushchev's embarrassment over the pullout of missiles from Cuba, the Soviet's full-speed-ahead military buildup provoked the West into a competition that was unwinnable for the Soviet side. Laqueur quotes Valentin Falin, former Soviet ambassador to Germany, who, in speaking apropos of the arms race, said that "Detente would never have resulted in the tearing down of the Iron Curtain."

 

[Thunderbird]

Our estimates 1968--1972 were that almost 40% of GDP went to the military, space program, security services, intelligence services, targeted foreign aid for geopolitical influence, propping up dependent states, and the heavy industry to support these ventures. Most of this could not be diverted easily to consumer or light industry or other "normal" economic development.

So wouldn't accelerating the arms race put more pressure on the Soviets?

From the early 70s the Soviet economy was inevitably doomed,

Always inevitable in hindsight.

What tipped it over the edge was the public reaction to the nuclear catastrophe shown in real time on Soviet television, the body bags coming back from Afganistan, fall in life expectancy, and the complete exhaustion of the Soviet peoples who no longer had any hope. It was an existential collapse and it was total.

So wouldn't trumpeting the moral hollowness of Communism and aiding the rebels in Afghanistan put additional pressure on the Soviets?

Please have the decency to understand that the Soviet peoples did nothing to "deserve" the hell they went through.

We should focus blame on the Communist leadership, not the average citizen.

But they did absorb 80% of the casualties

Do you mean inflict? And what is your evidence? And don't forget Russian casualties were so high because of Stalin's inept leadership. Think of Stalin's purge of the army.

while America and Britain stood by unable or unwilling to bear more than a token effort for almost five years.

The American effort was hardly token!

Don't exclude the massive Normandy invasion in 1944 and also remember:

1) The vast quantity of war material supplied by the U.S. to Russia
2) The desperate fighting between the U.S. and Japan
3) The bombing campaign
4) The invasion of Sicily in 1943

And never forget the Stalin-Hitler love connection!

Without the sacrifices of the Soviet peoples, America today would likely have jackbooted skinheads wearing swastika armbands marching in the streets.

I think Communism is at least as bad as Nazism.

 

[longly]

Our estimates 1968--1972 were that almost 40% of GDP went to the military, space program, security services, intelligence services, targeted foreign aid for geopolitical influence, propping up dependent states, and the heavy industry to support these ventures. Most of this could not be diverted easily to consumer or light industry or other "normal" economic development.

So wouldn't accelerating the arms race put more pressure on the Soviets?

From the early 70s the Soviet economy was inevitably doomed,

Always inevitable in hindsight.

So wouldn't trumpeting the moral hollowness of Communism and aiding the rebels in Afghanistan put additional pressure on the Soviets?

We should focus blame on the Communist leadership, not the average citizen.

Do you mean inflict? And what is your evidence? And don't forget Russian casualties were so high because of Stalin's inept leadership. Think of Stalin's purge of the army.

while America and Britain stood by unable or unwilling to bear more than a token effort for almost five years.

The American effort was hardly token!

Don't exclude the massive Normandy invasion in 1944 and also remember:

1) The vast quantity of war material supplied by the U.S. to Russia
2) The desperate fighting between the U.S. and Japan
3) The bombing campaign
4) The invasion of Sicily in 1943

And never forget the Stalin-Hitler love connection!

Without the sacrifices of the Soviet peoples, America today would likely have jackbooted skinheads wearing swastika armbands marching in the streets.

I think Communism is at least as bad as Nazism.

They killed a lot more people.

 

[longly]

Jimmy Carter

 

[elektra]

Obama, now we can see that Cold Wars hardly die, given the right leadership.

 

[S.J.]

Reagan is not the only reason the Soviets failed..

Defense costs, furthermore, were eating up an inordinate portion of Soviet expenditures. Because of the difficulty in measuring the Soviet GNP it was not always clear what percentage was being spent to this end. Experts now claim the West routinely underestimated the numbers. It is now believed that in years just prior to 1991 as much as 30 percent of the economy went toward the defense sector putting an enormous burden on the average citizen in terms of delayed consumer satisfaction. Then there were the costs incurred by shoring up overseas adventures such as those in Africa, not to mention the drain of the war in Afghanistan and the expense involved in maintaining Castro's lifeline.

But all of this is preliminary to asking and attempting to answer what clearly has become the hottest and most ideologically-fraught issue pertaining to the close of the Cold War, namely the extent to which America's acceleration of the arms race impacted the Soviet Union so as to hasten her fall from power.

The Fall Of The Soviet Union: Whys And Wherefores

Your quote says it all, Bud. Why do you think their defense costs were so high? Duh, they were in an arms race with the U.S. And why do you think their costs in Afghanistan and Cuba were so high? Maybe because Reagan was giving the resistance in Afghanistan MONEY AND ARMS to fight the Soviets? Then there's Central America. Reagan was costing them millions because of our funding the Contras. I know you guys don't like to give Reagan any credit for bringing down the U.S.S.R. but he did it, despite the efforts of a Democratic Congress to stop him. Don't be disingenuous, especially for partisan reasons, give credit where credit is due.

 

[LA RAM FAN]

Lyndon Johnson's foreign policy was the worst and Ronald Reagan's the best.

Sun Tzu wrote “An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness.”

Johnson - Giap avoided America's strength (massive firepower) and struck at America's weakness (fickle public support).

Check out the video: Sun Tzu tactics used in Vietnam War 1/3

Douglas MacArthur was right to urge the United States to avoid land wars in Asia.

Reagan - Reagan avoided the Soviet's strength (massive army in Europe) and struck at the Soviet's weaknesses (a failing economy and outdated technology).

Reagan successfully bankrupted the Soviet Empire.

President Ronald Reagan: Winning the Cold War

As in the Cold War, Russia Is Vulnerable on Energy

Now thats funny,reagan had nothing whatsoever to do with the soviet unions demise.The soviet union bankrupted themselves over the years with their massive military buildup.It had nothing to do with reagan,it would have happened no matter who had been president at the time.the russinas caused thier own collapse.you cant believe anything out textbooks tells you in our corrupt government funded schools.

Johnson has the worst foreign policy alright though.He reversed JFK's policy on vietnam for complete withdrawel from vietnam by 1965 esculating it with the phony gulf of tonkin incident in 1965. Jfk had the best foergin policy,he was a man of peace who sought peaceful solutions with other countrys and governments and he paid the price for that seeking peaceful solutions to the worlds problems on nov 22nd 1963.