I know that they helped make Afghanistan a drain on the USSR but did they really play a big role in the downfall of the USSR or just a minor role?
I ask because i am wondering if Al Qaeda in Iraq poses any real threat to the US in the same way (draining our economy, which i admit terrorists are doing by making us change our foreign policy). Right now Al Qaeda seems like more of a nuisance than a serious threat, their attacks appear to be minor and localized right now in Iraq.
It was one rather large nail in the coffin, but I think the event that proved once and for all that the USSR was rusting out was Chernobyl.
I don’t think that was quite the case…after all, didn’t a U.S. reactor plant (apparently very similar in design to the Chernobyl reactor) experience a partial meltdown as well? I forget exactly when it was, though.
Based on what I’ve read, Afghanistan was mostly important in demoralizing the Soviet military, kinda like Vietnam for the U.S.
Eh. Afghanistan certainly was a significant blow to the public in the Soviet Union.
Personally, I like the theory that the Soviet Union started to tank because it viewed the copier and the computer as security risks, rather than a tool for their economy, which had reached a stage of such great silliness that I find it hard to argue that all these other factors (Afghanistan, Chernobyl, Reagan) were much more than piling on.
Well, the American reactor was the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvaina, and suiffered a partial meltdown on March 28, 1979. I don’t know how similar in design it was to Chernobyl. I expect not a lot.
Interestingly, the Jane Fonda/Jeck Lemmon movie The China Syndrome was already in release at the time.
Anyhoo, the American system is robust enough that it could handle TMI and Vietnam without collapsing, while the USSR fell apart after Afghanistan and (the much worse incident at) Chernobyl.
The only “major” nuclear reactor accident in the United States was the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 - said accident did not kill or injure anyone, and did not lead to any long term effects. NRC: Fact Sheet Three Mile Island
The Chernobyl reactor killed about 30 people directly after the accident, with some more people killed later by cancer (There are several claims as to the exact number, ranging from 10 to thousands - this can be tricky to estimate., in addition to forcing a considerable evacuation from the area.
World Nuclear Association - Chernobyl
Also, Chernobyl was very poorly designed by western standards and very differently designed than anything you will find in the U.S. -it didn’t have a proper containment dome like on the Three Mile Reactor, and Chernobyl was a graphite moderated reactor (Graphite has a tendency to burn, which caused the problems at Chernobyl); Three Mile Island (Like most other American reactors) is a pressurized light-water moderated reactor.
Y’all are neglecting at least two very, very important factors in the fall of the USSR: 1) a really, really fundamentally screwed-up economy and b) interethnic tensions. Afghanistan certainly didn’t help, but if you’re trying to compare pre-downfall USSR and current US, I think it’s apples and oranges.
One of the funniest books was an official and wonky looking tome entitled “What We Learned from Three Mile Island Incident”
Aside from the title page and copyrights, the entire book, hundreds of pages, was blank.
Alarmist, but still a pretty funny way to make a point.
What Afghanistan did was destroy the image of the Red Army as being invincible.
What brought down the USSR, when all is said and done, was Ronald Reagan’s unyielding policy on defense. He forced the “Evil Empire” to spend more than they could afford to in order to keep up in the wepons race.
The Afgan situation speeded things up, but basically, it was Reagan.
Reagan alone? Piffle. That completely ignores the contributions of the Cold Warrior presidents before him, starting with Truman who initiated the policy of containment with respect to the Soviets. The most that can be said for the Gipper is that he happened to be sitting in The Big Chair when theings finally fell apart for the Reds. Happily for Ronny, when you’re President you get credit for anything good that happens during your term of office whether you are actually responsible for it or not. This is especially true of matters of economy or foreign policy.
Eva Luna has it right. Afghanistan was a symptom, not a cause. The USSR broke up from a truly inadequate economic system that could not sustain its military and a truly broken political system that could not keep its diverse republics together without the force provided by its military. The remarkable thing is that the breakup happened without significant bloodshed, and for that we may thank one man, whom history has shouldered aside without much fanfare — Mikhael Gorbachev. Say what you will about the man, he turned what could have been a truly bloody civil war into a bloodless breakup into independent republics, and for that the world owes him a debt of thanks second only to that it owes to Ronald Reagan, who stood up to the Red Army, preventing the expansionism that would have allowed it the only other option available to it — continued gobbling of resources, enabling it to prop up the failing economic system.
World War Three was averted by those two people, essentially by two personalities. May God bless them both.
Right. “One big nail in the coffin”, and specially the demoralizing effect of showing that on the ground the Soviet Army was not invincible. But the basic bring-down was that the political and economic system could not sustain the attempt to keep up with or ahead of the West militarily and industrially AND provide for the needs and aspirations of the people (who were likely starting to wonder where, after 70 years, were all the promised wonders of Communist society). The latter failure was already helping feed centrifugal nationalism – people don’t secede from states that are treating them right – and the proof that Soviet power could be resisted only strengthened it.
In any case, contrast what happened to the USA in 1964-74. Unpopular, bloody foreign war adventure in which we get embarrassed by third-world fighters (who were ALSO getting supported with training, intelligence, money and matériel from other Great Powers, like the Mujahdeen were, but unlike AlQaeda), draft resistance in the streets, racial tensions and riots, assasinations of prominent political leaders, a “culture war” within segments of society, and towards the end a president getting run out of town on a rail and the first great oil crisis.
The US is still here. The USSR lasted, what, 11 years?, after rolling into Afghanistan.
Finland, 1939/40 anyone? The Winter War, that embarrassing disaster of the USSR being unable to defeat a country despite having more men under arms than Finland had in its entire population? I’ve never heard that the Red Army was allegedly invincible before Afghanistan.
The cost of Afghanistan in blood and treasure was not that great for the USSR. The war didn’t help matters, but at the heart of the USSRs collapse was a failing economy and a failure of an economic and political system.
Dissonance, the presumption after 1945 was that the Soviet Army was one of the badassest mothers on the planet, that was only held back by the threat of our nukes.