Thread: Liberties of the Russian people .

Originally Posted by Ramil

Sooooo, about SDI, do you really think it was a real threat? [...] I doubt US was capable of SDI in the early 1980s.

Honestly, I have no idea. But if you remember the early '80s you'd remember "the Pershing II and the SDI threat" talk was looking for you even if you'd opened your fridge.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Some say that SDI was a bluff in order to hurl USSR into more expenses it could afford, well, if it was it was a very successful one, I'd say the Soviet leaders believed it.

I think so too. At least, that's how it looked from the outside.

Originally Posted by Ramil

Still, I don't see how KGB missed this fact and generally I cannot imagine a bluff of that magnitude and I find it hard to believe.

I think that question was more of the GRU's competence than of the KGB's, but that doesn't make much difference. I mean, the Cold War era intelligence games are a way too complex for a simple-minded crocodile like myself. There's never an end to it. For example, perhaps the SU preparation for the preemptive war was also a disinformation campaign so that the US would spend more money on the SDI (while the Soviet Leaders spent much less on the 'preemptive war preparation' than the US Government on the 'SDI implementation') and the US government realized that fact ('I know that you know that I know') and spent more money in order to really impress the Soviet Leaders more and the SU made the 'preemptive war' looking more realistic, and so the game of who's fooling whom goes on and on.

Originally Posted by Ramil

I think USSR was destroyed from within, not from outside. By its own people, not by some clever US president.

Yes and no. I think the clever US president might have significantly contributed to a situation in which it was beneficial for some people to get more independence (=more local power) and sacrifice the power of the USSR. The 'own people' rode a wave (which was partially created by the US president) to their own benefit.