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Russia's only warm water ports are on the Black Sea in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

They've had an agreement with the Ukraine to operate out of those ports for a long time. Most of the residents of the Crimea region are of Russian ancestry.

There was no problem with the arrangement until the CIA went in and stirred up a buncha chit.

There's a lot of crazies in the American letter agencies. As has been demonstrated, they answer to no-one and they like to keep chit stirred up.

The vast majority of America's elected government knows their place. They know not to speak out against the deep state. If they do, they don't keep their cushy, high paying jobs very long.

If someone actually gets elected President that doesn't kiss deep state ass, they end up getting treated like Trump does.

If you don't know what that is,...just turn on one of the cable news networks right now,...this minute. See what they're saying.

Change channels,...then check back in a few hours. They'll still be saying it.

At 3AM tomorrow morning,..when you get up to piss,....turn on a cable news network.

They'll still be talking about it.

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Ever Trumpers seem, like Never Trumpers, to call situations as a choice between COMLLETELY AND UTTERLY FOR Trump or COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY AGAINST Trump.

One can recognize the intelligence of Trumps policy as characterized in the OP while also recognizing that the way he appeared on stage being owned by Putin and the way he seemed to throw his own intel agencies under the bus for Putin’s benefit were bad moves. Those two things can be (and in fact ARE) true at the same time.

What he says publicly and what he does in terms of policy seem rather different and I think Putin, as the OP intelligently (and THROUGHLY) laid forth, knows the difference. I also think Putin knows how to stroke Trump and stoke the Leftists so as to keep our country in a state of conflict. That’s not good, but just how bad it is remains to be seen.

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Originally Posted by Daveinjax
Originally Posted by RufusG
Originally Posted by Daveinjax
The eventual settlement will be the Russians getting out of the Ukraine while they keep what has traditionally been theirs ,


Pretty sure the Russians haven't entered Ukraine, with the exception of the Crimea.

It’s Russians propping up the the rebellion in the eastern Ukraine and there are a significant number of out of uniform Russian special forces doing the heavy lifting. Back when Bathhouse Barry was president Putin felt emboldened to take part of the Ukraine under the excuse of protecting the greater ethnic Russian population in the eastern Ukraine.


You're leaving off the beginning of the story, wherein Vickie Nudelman and the CIA facilitated a coup to remove the democratically elected head of Ukraine (who was giving signals he might like Putin better than us) so they could install some neo-nazis who definitely liked us better than Putin. The Ukro-nazi shelling of innocent civilians in the east was meant to goad Putin into rolling his tanks, but he didn't take the bait. They weren't supposed to fight back? The nerve of them, preferring a President they elected over one imposed on them by the CIA. He just snagged what he wasn't willing to lose, and left us holding the bag of another broken, useless country for our (Billions?) investment.

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Agree 100%. NATO countries need to pay their fair share and we will cover there back.
Plus I,d like to see Finland and Sweden as full partners in NATO.

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lot's of discussion everywhere now.

i can see from watching cnn & fox (as if that helps), that the american rank & file believes everything told to them during the cold war as remaining true today. even the politicians can't imagine not attacking russia as the debil himself.

the deep state is deeply embedded with the military-industrial complex. even the good senator from kentucky knows this. not to have a major enemy like russia to keep the military equipment production lines going, billions of dollars will be lost, and then re-allocated. why, that's no fun.

so, gang up and attack trump. sounds like a plan.

trump says the world has changed, and we need to look at it differently.

with our debts of 20 trillion or more, depending upon who's counting, even trump sees a re-set is in order, no matter that oboma nor hillary could implement it. maybe trump can.


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Putin probably remembers the meaning of "Maskarovka" and the KGB use of dis-information. Trump certainly does.


mike r


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Wish you were better

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Originally Posted by curdog4570
How good of you to mingle with us “you people” types.

Is “you people” a step up, or down, from being a “ basket of deplorable”?


We's been promoted up from the "whiners" who wouldn't accept his last mile-long stack of disjointed ramblings.

We keep workin our karma, someday we can achieve nirvana as @ssholes.

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Originally Posted by curdog4570
How good of you to mingle with us “you people” types.

Is “you people” a step up, or down, from being a “ basket of deplorable”?


Depends on which end of the stick you’re holding. If on the schhitt end, you’re just a face barker.


The degree of my privacy is no business of yours.

What we've learned from history is that we haven't learned from it.
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Who says any of this was directed at you two? Guilty conscious? 😉👍


"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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Originally Posted by Bristoe
The real enemies of America are also Russia's enemies.

That's why there's so much shrieking about Trump meeting with Putin.

The enemies of America and Russia are responsible for the shrieking.

If Russia and America formed an alliance, the combination would be difficult for the deep state/globalists/Communists to deal with.

Also,..the goal of the deep state/globalists/Communists depend on America being hostile to Russia.


This^^^. In spades.


Ecc 10:2
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but that of a fool to the left.

A Nation which leaves God behind is soon left behind.

"The Lord never asked anyone to be a tax collector, lowyer, or Redskins fan".

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Originally Posted by Fubarski
Originally Posted by curdog4570
How good of you to mingle with us “you people” types.

Is “you people” a step up, or down, from being a “ basket of deplorable”?


We's been promoted up from the "whiners" who wouldn't accept his last mile-long stack of disjointed ramblings.

We keep workin our karma, someday we can achieve nirvana as @ssholes.


Not someday. You’re already there, deep in nirvana.


The degree of my privacy is no business of yours.

What we've learned from history is that we haven't learned from it.
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Originally Posted by Bristoe
Among other things, the deep state/globalists/Communists have plans to send America to war against Iran. It would make them very happy if America's war with Iran escalated into a war with Russia.

America and Russia have the potential to be the biggest impediment to their plans for global domination.

They want to make certain that as much animosity as possible is maintained between America and Russia so that no diplomacy between America and Russia spoils their plans.



And this^^^. Double spades. The deep state wants nuclear war. Thats why Bill paid Kim billions to develop nuclear weapons and its why Zero paid Iran $150 billion to make them. Putin hates the proposed one world order.


Last edited by jaguartx; 07/17/18.

Ecc 10:2
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but that of a fool to the left.

A Nation which leaves God behind is soon left behind.

"The Lord never asked anyone to be a tax collector, lowyer, or Redskins fan".

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Originally Posted by RufusG
Originally Posted by Daveinjax
Originally Posted by RufusG
Originally Posted by Daveinjax
The eventual settlement will be the Russians getting out of the Ukraine while they keep what has traditionally been theirs ,


Pretty sure the Russians haven't entered Ukraine, with the exception of the Crimea.

It’s Russians propping up the the rebellion in the eastern Ukraine and there are a significant number of out of uniform Russian special forces doing the heavy lifting. Back when Bathhouse Barry was president Putin felt emboldened to take part of the Ukraine under the excuse of protecting the greater ethnic Russian population in the eastern Ukraine.


You're leaving off the beginning of the story, wherein Vickie Nudelman and the CIA facilitated a coup to remove the democratically elected head of Ukraine (who was giving signals he might like Putin better than us) so they could install some neo-nazis who definitely liked us better than Putin. The Ukro-nazi shelling of innocent civilians in the east was meant to goad Putin into rolling his tanks, but he didn't take the bait. They weren't supposed to fight back? The nerve of them, preferring a President they elected over one imposed on them by the CIA. He just snagged what he wasn't willing to lose, and left us holding the bag of another broken, useless country for our (Billions?) investment.

I completely agree that our CIA started the BS in the Ukraine but Putin was looking for an excuse. Doesn’t really matter who started it but Russia will eventually have to give up or be economically crushed. We haven’t even started to make them bleed in the Ukraine. We could pour arms into the Ukraine and it would get ugly quick for the Russians.


‘TO LEARN WHO RULES OVER YOU, SIMPLY FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE’

Conspiracy theorists are the ones who see it all coming…

You are the carbon they want to eliminate !

I’m Uber Deplorable Ultra MAGA !
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Originally Posted by Old_Toot
Originally Posted by Fubarski
Originally Posted by curdog4570
How good of you to mingle with us “you people” types.

Is “you people” a step up, or down, from being a “ basket of deplorable”?


We's been promoted up from the "whiners" who wouldn't accept his last mile-long stack of disjointed ramblings.

We keep workin our karma, someday we can achieve nirvana as @ssholes.


Not someday. You’re already there, deep in nirvana.


Originally Posted by Old_Toot
How is Trump a win, Flave? What political history does he have, much has been discussed of it here. All he is, is fuggin loud mouth with no substantive points and the trumpeteers here drool over him cause "he's sticking it to "them". Hey, I like his pc bashing and the same against the msm and he's right. damned good entertainment. That's all it is. But where is the substance??

Several; Cruz, Kasich would work for me with a Fiorina or Rubio in the sub card (VP).


Ol' Queef, tryin ta set a record for longest-lastin vaginal sores.



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Originally Posted by Daveinjax
Originally Posted by RufusG
Originally Posted by Daveinjax
Originally Posted by RufusG
Originally Posted by Daveinjax
The eventual settlement will be the Russians getting out of the Ukraine while they keep what has traditionally been theirs ,


Pretty sure the Russians haven't entered Ukraine, with the exception of the Crimea.

It’s Russians propping up the the rebellion in the eastern Ukraine and there are a significant number of out of uniform Russian special forces doing the heavy lifting. Back when Bathhouse Barry was president Putin felt emboldened to take part of the Ukraine under the excuse of protecting the greater ethnic Russian population in the eastern Ukraine.


You're leaving off the beginning of the story, wherein Vickie Nudelman and the CIA facilitated a coup to remove the democratically elected head of Ukraine (who was giving signals he might like Putin better than us) so they could install some neo-nazis who definitely liked us better than Putin. The Ukro-nazi shelling of innocent civilians in the east was meant to goad Putin into rolling his tanks, but he didn't take the bait. They weren't supposed to fight back? The nerve of them, preferring a President they elected over one imposed on them by the CIA. He just snagged what he wasn't willing to lose, and left us holding the bag of another broken, useless country for our (Billions?) investment.

I completely agree that our CIA started the BS in the Ukraine but Putin was looking for an excuse. Doesn’t really matter who started it but Russia will eventually have to give up or be economically crushed. We haven’t even started to make them bleed in the Ukraine. We could pour arms into the Ukraine and it would get ugly quick for the Russians.


To each his own, but I liked it better when we were the good guys.

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For those interested, a quick look describes the increase in Saudi oil producting to MAX production suddenly starting in 1985 as "the Saudis ............... decided to punish the undisciplined OPEC countries." We know it really was in return for F-15s and AWACS. Reagan had already supplied F-15s to Israel. Arms Race Middle East style, right there.

Please note the last section that taks about "High-cost oil production facilities became less or even not profitable. Oil prices as a result fell to as low as $7 per barrel."

High-cost oil production is exactly what the USSR had.

All the historical references are there IF you choose to look.



"OPEC's membership began to have divided opinions over what actions to take. In September 1985, Saudi Arabia became fed up with de facto propping up prices by lowering its own production in the face of high output from elsewhere in OPEC.[20] In 1985, daily output was around 3.5 million bpd, down from around 10 million in 1981.[20] During this period, OPEC members were supposed to meet production quotas in order to maintain price stability; however, many countries inflated their reserves to achieve higher quotas, cheated, or outright refused to accord with the quotas.[20] In 1985, the Saudis tired of this behavior and decided to punish the undisciplined OPEC countries.[20] The Saudis abandoned their role as swing producer and began producing at full capacity, creating a "huge surplus that angered many of their colleagues in OPEC".[21] High-cost oil production facilities became less or even not profitable. Oil prices as a result fell to as low as $7 per barrel.[20]"





Declassified CIA analysis on the cost of the war in Afghanistan to the USSR:

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000499320.pdf

1987 article on how the USSR was preparing to launch its own "Star Wars" program in attempt to keep up.:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...smen-soviet-military-power-soviet-leader

SDI "Ended the Cold War in Reykjavik"

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/the-phantom-menace-106551

Quote from that article comfirming that the USSR was spending itself into financial ruin between Afghanistan and the Cold War arms race:


Quote
"At the time, the Soviets lacked the technological infrastructure and resources to compete with such a sophisticated missile defense system. As Gorbachev told the Politburo in his pre-Reykjavik preparation sessions, their country was maxed out on defense spending.

A decade before Gorbachev came to power, I witnessed a “barroom brawl” between my boss, then-Secretary of Defense (for the first time) Don Rumsfeld, and then-CIA Director George H. W. Bush. The two squared off over whether the Soviets were allocating 9 to 11 percent (Bush’s view) or 11 to 13 percent (Rumsfeld’s view) of their GDP for defense. Both estimates seemed relatively high: At the time, the United States was spending roughly 5 percent.

During a brief opening of Kremlin archives in the mid-1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that the number was actually between 30 and 40 percent—and had been for several decades. This was a staggering figure, as Gorbachev well knew. The Soviet government simply could spend no more."



Hey Phil! You still want to call my OP BS or do you want me to beat you up with more facts? Because my OP is FACT based, I can go on and on finding sources to confirm my analysis. How about any of you other Leftist half-wit trolls? Need me to spoon feed it to you?

This is the formula Trump is using now.


"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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Originally Posted by Fubarski
Originally Posted by Old_Toot
Originally Posted by Fubarski
Originally Posted by curdog4570
How good of you to mingle with us “you people” types.

Is “you people” a step up, or down, from being a “ basket of deplorable”?


We's been promoted up from the "whiners" who wouldn't accept his last mile-long stack of disjointed ramblings.

We keep workin our karma, someday we can achieve nirvana as @ssholes.


Not someday. You’re already there, deep in nirvana.


Originally Posted by Old_Toot
How is Trump a win, Flave? What political history does he have, much has been discussed of it here. All he is, is fuggin loud mouth with no substantive points and the trumpeteers here drool over him cause "he's sticking it to "them". Hey, I like his pc bashing and the same against the msm and he's right. damned good entertainment. That's all it is. But where is the substance??

Several; Cruz, Kasich would work for me with a Fiorina or Rubio in the sub card (VP).


Ol' Queef, tryin ta set a record for longest-lastin vaginal sores.




Good find. That was then, this is now. You might also want to post what I wrote just today about being totally wrong on Trump. Trump’s substance has been well proven to me and like Trump,,,I can change.

Thinking you, deep in nirvana, not so much able to. Can’t fix stupid, someone once said.

ETA: Page 4 of Picture worth a thousand words thread.

Let me know should you need more.

Last edited by Old_Toot; 07/17/18.

The degree of my privacy is no business of yours.

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Originally Posted by Bristoe
Russia's only warm water ports are on the Black Sea in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

They've had an agreement with the Ukraine to operate out of those ports for a long time. Most of the residents of the Crimea region are of Russian ancestry.

There was no problem with the arrangement until the CIA went in and stirred up a buncha chit.

There's a lot of crazies in the American letter agencies. As has been demonstrated, they answer to no-one and they like to keep chit stirred up.

The vast majority of America's elected government knows their place. They know not to speak out against the deep state. If they do, they don't keep their cushy, high paying jobs very long.

If someone actually gets elected President that doesn't kiss deep state ass, they end up getting treated like Trump does.

If you don't know what that is,...just turn on one of the cable news networks right now,...this minute. See what they're saying.

Change channels,...then check back in a few hours. They'll still be saying it.

At 3AM tomorrow morning,..when you get up to piss,....turn on a cable news network.

They'll still be talking about it.



Sevastopol had been a crucial Russian warm water seaport since Catherine The Great's time, and Russia has considered it part of greater Russia since then (1784). They had a good working arrangement with Ukraine SSR since WWII and could have maintained pretty much the same arrangement now, but Putin knew feckless Obama would blink and piss down his leg if Russia annexed Crimea, so he annexed it.


Hunt with Class and Classics

Religion: A founder of The Church of Spray and Pray

Acquit v. t. To render a judgment in a murder case in San Francisco... EQUAL, adj. As bad as something else. Ambrose Bierce “The Devil's Dictionary”







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Originally Posted by luv2safari
Originally Posted by Bristoe
Russia's only warm water ports are on the Black Sea in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

They've had an agreement with the Ukraine to operate out of those ports for a long time. Most of the residents of the Crimea region are of Russian ancestry.

There was no problem with the arrangement until the CIA went in and stirred up a buncha chit.

There's a lot of crazies in the American letter agencies. As has been demonstrated, they answer to no-one and they like to keep chit stirred up.

The vast majority of America's elected government knows their place. They know not to speak out against the deep state. If they do, they don't keep their cushy, high paying jobs very long.

If someone actually gets elected President that doesn't kiss deep state ass, they end up getting treated like Trump does.

If you don't know what that is,...just turn on one of the cable news networks right now,...this minute. See what they're saying.

Change channels,...then check back in a few hours. They'll still be saying it.

At 3AM tomorrow morning,..when you get up to piss,....turn on a cable news network.

They'll still be talking about it.



Sevastopol had been a crucial Russian warm water seaport since Catherine The Great's time, and Russia has considered it part of greater Russia since then (1784). They had a good working arrangement with Ukraine SSR since WWII and could have maintained pretty much the same arrangement now, but Putin knew feckless Obama would blink and piss down his leg if Russia annexed Crimea, so he annexed it.


Well,.....no.

Two factions in Ukraine. Those who want to join the EU,...those who don't.

It eventually resulted in almost enough conflict to call a civil war. Of course, the American alphabet agencies decided to get in on it and stir it up even more than it already was.

Russia decided to annex Crimea to protect it's deep water ports in the event that the pro EU rebels took over the government.

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hatari Offline OP
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Another tidbit that shows Trump is using the Reagan playbook on Russia is Trump's talk of creating a "Space Force".

Quote
President Trump's "Space Force" Idea Isn't As Wacky As It May Sound
In fact, it was almost realized last year.

Rich Smith (TMFDitty)
Jul 15, 2018 at 10:13AM
"I'm hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. ... We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force -- separate but equal." -- President Donald J. Trump

President Trump made headlines last month when he ordered the U.S. Department of Defense to create a "Space Force," a new branch of the military in addition to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. But while the idea came as a surprise to many pundits, and became the butt of no small amount of jokes on late night talk shows, it's actually not as wacky as it may sound.

It turns out that a United States "Space Force" has been under consideration for some time already, and was almost implemented as recently as last year.


Here's a great story that quotes former Sec of State George Schultz that talks about how Gorby feared SDI and how Reagan used it a leverage. This is all adding up nicely.

Quote

POLITICS
Ronald Reagan’s Disarmament Dream
How Reagan’s fantasy about—and Mikhail Gorbachev’s fear of—space weapons ruined a plan to eliminate the entire U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

JACOB WEISBERG
JAN 1, 2016

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan exchange pens at the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signing ceremony.BOB DAUGHERTY / AP
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After his reelection in 1984, President Ronald Reagan sat for an interview with Time magazine. “I just happen to believe that we cannot go into another generation with the world living under the threat of those weapons and knowing that some madman can push the button some place,” he said. “My hope has been, and my dream, that we can get the Soviet Union to join us in starting verifiable reductions of the weapons. Once you start down that road, they’ve got to see how much better off we would both be if we got rid of them entirely.” In his dealing with the Soviets, Reagan’s two terms were almost those of two different presidents. Both the hard-liner and the peacemaker were present throughout, but the balance shifted so decisively from one to the other as to create a discontinuity. The man who had denounced the nuclear freeze as Soviet propaganda was now suggesting not just reduction but elimination of all nuclear weapons.

What explains Reagan’s remarkable transformation from Cold War hawk to nuclear peacemaker? His nuclear abolitionism had deep roots, going back to a flirtation with pacifism in the early 1930s. His antiwar side was connected to narratives and images that deeply affected him: seeing the British antiwar play Journey’s End in 1929, being shown footage from the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, and watching the ABC television movie The Day After in 1983. A projection that stuck with him was that at least 150 million Americans—two-thirds of the population in 1980—would be killed in an all-out nuclear war, though he believed for some reason that Soviet losses would be limited to a much smaller percentage. Advisers who “tossed around macabre jargon about ‘throw weights’ and ‘kill ratios’ as if they were talking about baseball scores” appalled him. In his diary and to aides, Reagan even worried that the biblical prophecy of Armageddon was at hand.
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With the elevation of Mikhail Gorbachev as the new Soviet leader in March 1985, Reagan’s hopes for a nuclear peace rose. The 54-year-old Gorbachev was well educated and had traveled extensively in the West. He understood English, he wasn’t dying (like his elderly predecessors Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko), and he even appeared to have a sense of humor. His wife, Raisa, was often at his side, like an American first lady. In his initial months in power, Gorbachev announced a unilateral freeze on deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe and began speaking in public about the need for perestroika, economic reform. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former President Richard Nixon, and others gave Reagan their opinion that Gorbachev represented no change at all. But British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher disagreed. “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together,” she told the BBC after meeting him for the first time. Thatcher bolstered Reagan’s optimism about the Soviet leader when she visited him at Camp David and delivered a more detailed assessment, warning him, however, that “the more charming the adversary, the more dangerous.”

Gorbachev’s situation paralleled Reagan’s in several ways. He, too, wanted to serve as an agent of societal and political transformation, taking on the alcoholism rampant in Soviet society as well as its faltering economy. Like Reagan, he relied on his own experience more than on the bureaucratic apparatus beneath him. He shared Reagan’s aversion to the logic of mutually assured destruction. Around the same time that Reagan told Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko he wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons, Gorbachev said the same thing in a speech in London. And where Reagan had Secretary of State George Shultz to encourage his evolution, Gorbachev had Eduard Shevardnadze, whom he selected to replace Gromyko as foreign minister.

The chief obstacle to the relationship Reagan wanted with the new Soviet leader was Reagan’s cherished fantasy of a space-based missile-defense program, the Strategic Defense Initiative. In the run-up to their summit meeting in Geneva in November 1985, the first meeting of American and Soviet leaders in six years, Gorbachev sent Reagan a letter proposing a 50 percent cut in intercontinental ballistic missiles, contingent on a complete ban on space weapons. In negotiating sessions, Gorbachev went even further: If the United States gave up the militarization of space, he would be willing to reduce all nuclear forces to zero. Shultz now realized how frightened the Soviets were of SDI, which depended on technology they didn’t know how to develop and couldn’t afford, and he saw missile defense as a crucial bargaining chip to trade for Soviet concessions.

What Shultz did not yet realize was that Reagan would under no circumstances give up the space initiative. Although missile defense had yet to be successfully invented, Reagan viewed SDI as the key to realizing his dream of eliminating nuclear weapons. “We believe that it is important to explore the technical feasibility of defensive systems which might ultimately give all of us the means to protect our people more safely than do those we have at present, and to provide the means of moving to the total abolition of nuclear weapons, an objective on which we are agreed,” he wrote to Gorbachev on April 30, 1985. “I must ask you, how are we ever practically to achieve that noble aim if nations have no defense against the uncertainty that all nuclear weapons might not have been removed from world arsenals? Life provides no guarantee against some future madman getting his hands on nuclear weapons.”
Over the next year, a remarkable transformation took place as Gorbachev and Reagan became jointly enraptured with the idea of ending the balance of terror, and they pursued that end over near-universal objection inside their own governments. In January 1986, Gorbachev wrote Reagan with a proposal: eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2000. “Why wait until the year 2000?” Reagan responded to aides in the Oval Office. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and CIA Director William Casey, who had done their best to sabotage earlier nuclear treaties, were appalled. Few others inside the Reagan administration took the idea of nuclear abolition seriously. But Shultz did. He ordered the State Department’s arms-control group to get to work on the question of “what a world without nuclear weapons would mean to us” and how to get there. “I know that many of you and others around here oppose the objective of eliminating nuclear weapons, but the president of the United States doesn’t agree with you, and he has said so on several very public occasions,” he told his colleagues. After much back-and-forth, Weinberger and Shultz were able to agree on a proposal to eliminate ballistic missiles, which Reagan sent to Gorbachev in July 1986.

Gorbachev’s anti-nuclear feelings only intensified after the calamitous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in April 1986, which left the Soviet leader all the more eager for an agreement. So, too, did the Soviet Union’s deteriorating economic situation. In the fall of 1985, Saudi Arabia announced plans to increase oil production. By the spring of 1986, the world price of oil plummeted from more than $30 a barrel to less than $10. Without hard-currency oil revenue, there was no way for the Soviets to pay for imports of grain and other basic commodities while servicing their foreign debt and keeping up militarily. “The United States has an interest in keeping the negotiations machine running idle, while the arms race overburdens our economy,” Gorbachev told a colleague. “That is why we need a breakthrough; we need the process to start moving.” In September 1986, Gorbachev wrote Reagan offering a number of unilateral concessions and proposing a meeting ahead of his planned visit to the United States the following year. Shultz encouraged Reagan to meet Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, the following month.

Gorbachev arrived at Reykjavik intending to put a significant disarmament package on the table, contingent on Reagan’s agreement to slow down the development of space weapons. In fact, Gorbachev’s proposal was essentially the one he had originally proposed in the run-up to the Geneva summit: a 50 percent cut in the ICBMs that were the core of the Soviet nuclear arsenal and the total elimination of intermediate-range missiles in Europe. But now Gorbachev was willing to treat limited research on space-based missile defense as compatible with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States had only to agree to confine its SDI research to the laboratory for ten years and commit not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty for five years after that.
Over dinner with his advisers, Reagan returned to the even more sweeping idea that he’d raised previously: why not the complete elimination of ballistic missiles? The next day, with Gorbachev, the sky was the limit. When the Americans laid all their ICBMs on the table, Gorbachev called and raised by proposing the elimination of all strategic nuclear weapons, including submarines and bombers, over ten years. His bid was still contingent on ten years of adherence to his narrow interpretation of the ABM Treaty and its limits on missile defense, but he indicated he’d be willing to negotiate on that point. This seemingly minor disagreement about how long SDI research would stay confined to the laboratory blocked what would have been the most sweeping arms-control agreement in history. Knowing his own bottom line and grasping Gorbachev’s, Reagan realized that they could go no further. The meeting, so close to a momentous transformation, ended when the president got up and walked out with Shultz while Gorbachev was still decrying the destabilizing effects of SDI.

“This meeting is over,” he said. “Let’s go, George.”

“Can’t we do something about this?” Gorbachev pleaded.

“It’s too late,” Reagan replied.


"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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