yah but Reagan did bollocks all compared to Gorby


As Keylor says “Gorbachev drastically scaled back Soviet military and political commitments across the globe” Russia first pulled out of Afghanistan, then removed Soviet interests from the Horn of Africa, whilst later using their influence (and co-operating with America) to attempt to diffuse tensions in the Middle East.

Gorbachev came to power in Russia amidst a period of low production, low consumer buying (because simply there was no money) and the long-standing ethnic conflicts in the Union itself were beginning to become more apparent everyday, as was the lack of a way to solve them. For Gorbachev to deal with the social and economic problems at home would have been hard enough on its own, but to try and keep up the arms race with America was surely impossible, Gorbachev did not subscribe to the Leninist hard-line thinking that war was inevitable, he was more interested in the reform of the Soviet economy. This ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy – talk of ‘common goals’ – was revolutionary for Russia, his keenness to come to agreement with Reagan and later Bush over nuclear weapons was clear. Yet this was not because he was afraid of the Americans, as a Marxist he knew that if the economy of the USSR collapsed then she would be powerless and would fall to nothingness, which was the last thing Gorbachev wanted. The American-induced drop in oil prices also made it far more difficult for the Soviets main arms customers, places like Iraq and Iraq, to continue their trade deals and purchase more Soviet weaponry which was a further blow to the Soviet income. Foreign industrial projects also had to be scrapped; a Renault car factory, two British chemical plants, and the purchase of Japanese and U.S. machinery due to a lack of hard currency to back them with. To Gorbachev 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. Much of the impromptu Iceland Summit in 1986 was centred on Gorbachev's attempt to convince Reagan of the importance of scrapping SDI.


“When Gorbachev set off on the road to Glasnost he opened public access to the past and present and without knowing it, greased the skids for the ‘Great Collapse’. Thinking he would clear the way for needed economic reforms by requiring access to meaningful statistical information, and desirous of rectifying the more egregious crimes of Stalin and Brezhnev by freeing thousands of dissidents, he, in fact, wrought more than he bargained for."