Actually, in the 1970’s after the slowdown in the USSR economy, there was great pressure on the Higher ups to begin reform. The idea was that the USSR would use its excellent scientific base to compete directly in the international markets. They would select only those industries which could perform. Unfortunately, the the Yom Kippur War happened and the price of oil rose, stabilising the USSR economy and squelching any reform. By the time Gorby showed up, it was too late.
Whether the Soviet system of planned production was capable of being reformed or not, the Soviet economy was beyond repair, and arguably had been so for decades. The Soviets didn’t lack for innovation and good engineering, as can be seen from many examples of proposed and fielded military systems, but quality control was beyond piss-poor, material shortages (despite the bounty of natural resources within the Soviet Union) were an ever-present challenge, and part of the impetus for the post-WWII Soviet expansionary policies was to gain the industrial and economic capabilities of Poland, Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia that Russia desperately needed to recover from both the disastrous pre-war policies which led to dramatic recessions in the mid-to-late 'Thirties and the devastation of the German invasion of Russia and Ukraine during WWII. Internally, the CPSU was plagued with strife, as the younger generation of up and coming leaders (of which Gorbechev was actually a moderate) vied with the hardliners who objected to even the modest economic reforms under the Brezhnev era. Socially, Soviet citizens were getting increasing exposure to Western culture (both good and otherwise) and were demanding liberalization. Regardless of what the elite wanted or external pressures dictated, the Soviet Union was ready to come apart at the seams, and the only real surprise was the speed and lack of violence with which it occurred. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was probably the closest to guess when it would occur, as he estimated that it would happen before the turn of the millennium, and even he was pessimistic by a decade.)
Actually, the Soviets had spent a lot of effort in the late 'Sixties through the 'Seventies on ABM systems, both nuclear-tipped rocket-boosted interceptors and directed energy weapons research, and there was much infighting between design bureaus (which were the equivalent of competing “defense contractors” under the state-owned defense industry) over various competing approaches. Their conclusions, as we now know from what archives have been opened, was that interceptor systems could be easily overwhelmed by increasing the quantity of ICBMs (cheaply done using MIRV technology) and very modest improvements in penetration aids, while directed energy weapons at power levels capable of damaging a booster or RV in flight were at least decades beyond the state of the art and might not be feasible from a ground-based application due to adverse interactions with the atmosphere. In other words, the Soviets well knew that SDI was a tempest in a teapot, and their largest concern was that it would re-ignite competition over costly research already known to be fruitless.
And it wasn’t just “a fair number of Americans” who evidenced the flaws of SDI and recognized it as the cartoon engineering it was; it was thousands of engineers and physicists who were well aware of the limitations of the proposed concepts and the ability to realize them within a credible timeframe. Even the least radical proposal–the space-based kinetic interceptor system which became later known as “Brilliant Pebbles”–would have cost hundreds or thousands of billions of dollars to develop and establish with questionable efficacy. Subsequent developments–the operational-despite-poor-performing Ground Based Mid-Course Defense intercepts and the cancelled Air-Bourne Laser–have proven those doubts to be genuine. Even if those systems could be made capable against the 1980s-era technology of ICBMs (which is still essentially the level we are at today), only modest improvements in pen aids, fractional orbital, and maneuverable reentry vehicles would have likely rendered them ineffectual. In other words, even if SDI had been marginally workable, it would have only encouraged the development of newer and more capable offensive weapons. Only a “magic fairy” system which could pluck RVs out of the air with high efficacy would have provided any real measure of security against strategic attack, which again, the Soviets were well aware.
Stranger
How would you respond to someone who claims that ‘it made no difference whether SDI worked, could work, would probably never work, or could never work’? That ‘all that mattered was that the Soviets felt compelled to throw money at, or more accurately divert a large portion of their economy towards, developing countermeasures to it’?
From your post above, it obviously sounds as if your response would be that the Soviets never fell for it in any way. Without meaning to sound adversarial, then, was that really the case? Did they really just ignore the (potential) threat?
I ask because, as I am sure you know, a famous meme generated in the late stages of the Cold War is that the Soviet response to SDI helped accelerate the USSR’s collapse by diverting, and essentially bankrupting, its economy. Is that just BS created by those who worship at the alter of St. Ronnie?
Thanks.
And on that note, here’s a special thread for the OP of this thread.
The Soviet economy was already bankrupt by the early 'Sixties, as evidenced by the growing need to sell natural resources for pennies on the dollar in order to import needed manufactured and agricultural goods. Khrushchev recognized this, hence desalinization and his attempts at moderate economic reform which cost him credibility and later his positions as Soviet Premier and First Secretary/Chairman of the Central Committee of the CPSU. By the time Reagan came to office, the Soviet economy was long moribund, and had been spending a ridiculous portion (by some claims up to 80%, although inaccurate accounting records make it difficult to assess) on developing large numbers of new strategic weapon systems, with five families of ICBM systems operational and two more in development, including road and rail mobile versions, all told comprising over 1300 launchers, many capable of carrying 3, 4, 6, or 10 RVs in MIRV configuration for a total of nearly 5700 RVs. Compare this with the US that had three wings of obsolescent LGM-25C ‘Titan II’ missiles (18 per wing for a total of 54 operational missiles) carrying a single (if large) Mk. 6 RV, 450 LGM-30F ‘Minuteman II’ missiles with a single Mk. 11C RV per, and 550 LGM-30G ‘Minuteman III’ missiles with three (3) Mk-12 RVs per, for a total of 1054 boosters and 2144 RVs. There are similar numbers for intermediate and submarine launched systems (although the US had more numerical parity with SLBM systems, the Soviet weapons were considerably more powerful).
The US had been on the losing side of the numerical ratio of launchers since about 1970 (country to Kennedy’s claims about a “missile gap” circa 1960) and if anything Soviet arsenals started to decrease after a peak in 1982, although they started developing more road mobile and intermediate range systems while the US scrambled to deploy the Pershing II, GLCM cruise missile, and the 10 MIRV LGM-118A ‘Peacekeeper’ system (which was never deployed in the planned ‘Rail Garrison’ rail mobile configuration). The Soviets had more than enough extra capacity to throw at any ABM system that wasn’t essentially perfect (e.g. had a better than 90% intercept rate, which is a fanciful success rate by the standard of any weapon system).
What bankrupted the Soviet economy wasn’t the missile or ABM countermeasures systems, and in fact Soviet strategic spending remained relatively flat; it was the cost the Chernobyl disaster and loss of power generating capacity, the cost developing the barely used Soviet ‘Buran’ shuttle system, the almost 70% drop in crude oil prices which devastated Soviet buying power for needed foreign goods, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan, on top of the all of the existing problems of the Soviet economy and along with progressive difficulties in getting goods from the East Bloc client states like Poland (again, the Solidarity union played a significant part in this). Reagan just happened along at a time when the Soviet Union was suffering internal conflict through its aging leadership changing hands, its embroilment in Afghanistan (not masterminded by the Reagan Administration as oft claimed but in fact by Zbignew Brezinzki under Carter), and cultural and economic resistance within in the Warsaw Pact that, unlike in 1956 or 1968, it was ill-prepared to reverse. The only real surprise about the fall of the Soviet Union was how fast and how cleanly it went, with analysts and pundits anticipating some kind of civil or regional war over scarce resources with the Soviet leadership attempting to hold things together by force. (Gorbechev’s “Sinatra Doctrine” certainly eased this concern, although it is clear he didn’t think it would turn into a wholesale swap meet of Eastern resources and military technology to the West.)
Reagan talked big about tearing down walls, but the real players were in Russia, Poland, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. To his credit, Reagan’s sincere overtures of friendship and eventual warm relationship with Gorbechev led to credible discussions on arms reductions (INF and, eventually, START) but the sticking point of SDI prevented a true meeting of the minds which could have resulted in the elimination of the entire class of ICBMs and the threat of a global nuclear exchange.
Stranger
Very informative, thank you.
I really did not appreciate just how far gone the Soviet economy was by the late 1970’s and early 80’s. More importantly, I had not been aware how tightly its success, or even viability, was linked to the price of oil - ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’. Proverbs are proverbs for good reason.
This graph neatly illustrates that the price of crude oil peaked almost simultaneously with the start of Reagan’s presidency and went down from that point (not climbing back up in a sustained manner until Bush II). Ain’t that something? Live and learn.
Moderator Note
While the discussion has been interesting, I think we’re getting pretty far off the track of the OP. If you want to discuss the causes of the downfall of the Soviet Union, I think a new thread in GD would be the place for that.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Fair enough, but to a very large degree, those posts in this thread that have revolved around the downfall of the USSR, did so only insofar as the KAL shoot-down may have affected it (admittedly in a tenuous manner).
Actually, most of the recent posts have been saying that the KAL incident had little effect on the downfall, and have been mostly discussing the other factors involved (which is why I made my suggestion).
final thought on this: i had no idea a second plane, which actually was a spy plane, had been buzzing around the kal route not long before the shootdown…if that’s true then the excuse that the sovs thought the kal plane was the earlier spy lane could be…but at the time of the shootdown we never heard anything about the other plane
Yes, I imagine the government/military just loves to reveal its operations to the general public. Surely, nobody would object to such disclosure on security grounds.
Cite? This sounds like chatter from the era of the first book.
It wasn’t on the same flight path (and KAL 007 was itself not following its flight plan), but there was a RC-135 reconnaissance plane in the area but outside Soviet airspace due to a nearby missile test and the US did run several reconnaissance missions in the area before that.
No cite, but this is public knowledge at this point.
My uncle was on that plane and I remember being at
My aunts house and the US state dept called and told
My aunt and our family that they had landed on an island
And everyone was safe. I will always belive that thats what
Happened and they put the bare minimum in the ocean
To make the world think it was shot down. Fishermen
In the area saw and reported that the plane landed. I
Think the plane was damaged but not destroyed. No
Bodies were ever found and hardly any luggage was found,
But a bunch of shoes were found tied together. I believe
The people were held for a while and then probably killed.
We will never know everything but it is not what we were
Officially told.
Reported.
Welcome to the SDMB, Tbartif6.
The purpose of the Straight Dope is to fight ignorance, and fighting against whack-job conspiracy theories is one of the things we do here. I think you are going to find that your theory about KAL 007 isn’t going to find much support here. You’re not the first one to come up with this theory. It’s basically the abduction theory listed on this wikipedia page: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 alternative theories - Wikipedia
Whack-job conspiracy theories aside, the basic facts of KAL 007 aren’t really in dispute. KAL 007 deviated from its flight plan due to an improperly configured navigational computer. The Soviets mistook KAL 007 for a U.S. RC-135 that had been flying in the area. The Soviets shot down what they thought was a U.S. spy plane. There were no survivors and no abductions.
These facts aren’t really in dispute. Whether or not you choose to believe them is of course entirely up to you.
Damn! The State Department didn’t call any other families, just yours. Your Uncle must have been pretty important.
A more rigorous form than free verse would help advance the argument, but it must be said as scanned currently the tenuous relation of meaning is evoked nicely.
I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t know how old you were at the time, but is it possible you misunderstood the message to your aunt, or that she did? Is there any current record of this message other than memory? And then I wonder if you have thought about why events might have transpired the way you think they did. Who would force the plane to land on an island and why, and then why keep them there only to kill them later?
If they were going to kill everyone anyway, why not just shoot it down and skip the hoax part?