Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes
I certainly wouldn't say that we loved the arms race. Trillions of dollars were used to stoke it. For our economy, which was smaller in size than the American economy, it was a burden. But one cannot agree with the statement that the arms race played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev, Mikhail. The New Russia. Polity Press, 2016.
In 1992 Russia was in terrible economic shape after the fall of the Soviet Union. Keeping up with the United States military expenditures had bankrupted the Russians. The United States which had strategically increased its defense spending to break the Russian economy if they tried to keep up. However, the U. S. expenditures had forced America into a deficit spending period which produced a national deficit greater than all the previous cumulative deficits in our history. So the American economy was not in great shape either. Meanwhile, Japan, whose constitution (imposed by America after WWII) forbade having a military and funding a military. The result was the Japanese economy was growing at a much more rapid rate, and did not have the unbalanced budget of the United States and Russia. Hence, Tsongas’ observation.
He was exactly right. See {642079} for a perfect example of this prediction.
This statement was made at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Baldwin has been castigated since WWII for being part of the “appeasement group” in England. As Prime Minister in 1935 he would not face the threat of Fascism, Germany and the Nazis and did not initiate a major arms buildup. Churchill, among others, never forgave him. See {626930} for Churchill’s view of Baldwin.
McNamara stated that the Cuban Missile Crisis was more politically required than defense required. The Russians had nuclear missiles at the time that could reach the United States and didn’t really need missiles in Cuba to threaten America. Public opinion and the Republican Political doctrine persuaded President Kennedy that independent of safety and military factors, nuclear missiles in Cuba was a major political problem. See his comment to the President and the Other Officials dealing with the crises—{631968}.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. The eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was also the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
