Post by Globexanter on Apr 5, 2012 14:21:46 GMT -5
No offense, but that's a pretty weak argument, for two reasons:
i) Countless empires that were extraordinarily successful have fallen over time. It's like saying the Roman Empire wasn't successful because it isn't around today, or that the Mongol's weren't etc. Longevity and success, ultimately, do not equate!
ii) As you very correctly point out, the US is a major (if not THE major) economic superpower of the world, and has been since the decline of the British Empire. With sanctions from America (and various other NATO-aligned nations) facing the USSR continually from fairly early in its life, are you surprised that it ceased to exist? Had the situation been in reverse (and I stress that I'm NOT playing alternate histories here - just making a brief point) and the USSR been around before America, sanctions from the USSR/Warsaw bloc I'm sure would have similarly crippled any fledgling American State.
The History of the USSR - again, whatever you think of it - is far too complex to just dismiss in such a way.
First, longevity and success do in fact matter. Alexander the Great was one of the greatest leaders in human history as was Genghis Khan. Both of them were very successful in building their empires but the problem is once they died both their empires fell apart. So in the end while both men were successful, their empires were not. Now I could list everything that the Romans gave us in their nearly 1000 years or what the British Empire did in its nearly 500 years but quite frankly we don't have the time.
Second, I didn't say that the USSR didn't achieve some pretty important things in human history. The comment I made was directed at the fact that the USSR failed relativity shortly into its history. Now you can sit their and say, "Well if the US/NATO didn't this," or, "if the USSR did this," but it doesn't change the fact that the USSR is not here. Like Calanria has already told you guys, the USSR was doomed from the start, what the US/NATO did only quickened that fate.
So in short; No, I am not dismissing the history of the USSR, I was pointing out that the USSR was not a successful as some of you would like to believe.
And why was it doomed from the start? Because others began to prosecute it, some even going as far as denying it's sovereignty. The U.S.A. only recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, 16 years since it had began. From there on, starting at Stalin, a line of failures on the side of the Government is what truly lead to the downfall of the U.S.S.R., alongside the constant harassment by NATO and pro-NATO countries. On the subject of success, if we look at it from the point of view of the U.S.A., if the Soviet Union had not existed/had been set up and not hated earlier, the U.S.A. would of had not spent so much money in military research and such. Nearly every modern equipment to date has been influenced by the demand of the Cold War. So NATO kind of owes the U.S.S.R./Russia it's thanks on that point