The Super Summary of World History (89 page)

During the Carter administration the US Congress, under the leadership of the Church Committee, discovered the CIA was spying on US citizens, and the committee discovered the intelligence agency paid off “immoral people” in its espionage operations. Congress banned the CIA from spying in the United States, employing “unsavory people” for intelligence operations, and prohibited the FBI and CIA from sharing information. These moves, among others by Carter and the US Congress, destroyed the intelligence-gathering capability the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies possessed. These unrealistic laws stopped coordination in tracking foreign spies and terrorists. The Church Committee knew the problems this legislation would create, but Church and his colleagues chose to ignore pleas from the security agencies. The Church Committee truly eviscerated the ability of the US to gather intelligence in the Cold War, and this would continue during the War on Terror. As ragged as US intelligence was before, it shrank in value after Congress “reformed” the security agencies.

The communists made inroads in Africa and Latin America throughout the Carter years. The US lost control of the Panama Canal when the tiny nation of Panama seized the Canal Zone, Cuba sent troops to Africa and Latin America to fight for communism, Nicaragua went Communist, Iran went to the terrorists, Russia was threatening Iran and Turkey, and the United States was doing little to turn the tide.
OPEC
[345]
doubled the price of oil in retaliation for President Carter freezing Iranian assets in the United States. The world over the United States was viewed with disdain as more nations fell into communism’s sphere of influence.

The economy under Carter continued to stagger. Inflation accelerated along with government spending, meanwhile, the economy continued stagnating. With no economic growth and worsening world conditions, the future looked bleak. Some commentators were opining that the days of growth and prosperity were behind the Western world. The Western world’s economies had wandered in the doldrums for years. Since the Lyndon Johnson era, it seemed nothing had gone right economically. The European Union was coming together, and it was clear the economic union would benefit Western Europe; nevertheless, that benefit seemed a long way off. Nixon’s regulations failed to right the US economic ship, and even though these regulations were gone the economy meandered downward. The West, it seemed, was out of options. The Carter administration appeared unable to meet the challenge.

A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, and the following media frenzy, destroyed the nuclear electric industry in the United States. France and other nations continued to build nuclear reactors for energy, but the United States would halt this construction, effectively removing this source of power as an alternative to oil or natural gas. The fuel crisis rippled through the United States and other Western economies, further crippling the already fragile system of economic interchange. Congress and several states passed bills protecting the environment that made building anything much more expensive and time consuming. Oil refineries, for example, were simply not constructed after the passage of the restrictive environmental measures (even in 2010, no oil refineries have been constructed in the US since the 1970’s). The price of everything was increasing while wages were flat which, in essence, shrank the economic power of the common person.

Reagan:
Ultimate
Cold
Warrior

1980
to
1988

Figure 75
President Ronald Reagan

(We
win,
they
lose!)

In 1980,
Ronald
Reagan
was elected president of the United States. His first thought was to strengthen the US economy. Reagan cut taxes and decreased government regulation over many aspects of the economy. This was the magic bullet that no one else thought would work. Reagan decided
the
government
was
the
problem
with the US economy; thus, as he removed government restrictions and lowered taxes, the economy responded and began to grow rapidly. Inflation was tamed, wages began to increase as the economy expanded, and even tax revenues increased as the economy grew. Reagan proved the commentators wrong when they said the best days were behind the United States and the West. Reagan proved the best days were still ahead as long as the government gave the people the room to invent and the money (power) to do so. The US economy recovered from years of stagflation (a combination of inflation and stagnated growth) and began a more than decade’s long expansion. Many future politicians would reap the benefits of Reagan’s low tax and low regulation policies—without mentioning him of course.

Reagan armed the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan (actually Muslim fundamentalists) and tried to arm Latin American guerrillas to fight communism. The efforts in Afghanistan tied down thousands of Soviet troops and allowed the United States to hurt the Soviets as they had hurt the United States in Vietnam. None of this was essential because everything was a sideshow compared to what Reagan was really planning, an all-out assault on the Soviet system itself.

After taking office Reagan told his staff he had a new idea for dealing with communism: “
We
win,
they
lose,
” he said. This was a complete reversal of thirty-five years of US policy aimed at coexistence with the Soviets. Reagan wanted to destroy them, not live with them. To that end, he put his staff to work looking at what was weak in the Soviet system. The key flaw soon surfaced, their economy was on thin ice. To hurt the USSR’s economy, Reagan began an arms race where American technology would outperform the Soviets and cause them to spend millions they could not afford in order to keep up. The plan worked. The Soviets were paranoid about keeping up with the United States in arms and arms production. As their spending for military and technological hardware increased it collapsed their economy. The Soviet Union began to do things no one ever thought they would witness. They allowed the reunification of Germany; Poland’s independence; left Afghanistan, and they released their hold over Eastern Europe. By 1989 it was over, and ecstatic Germans, uniting their country after years of separation, tore down the Berlin Wall.

Eastern Europe was free, and many non-Russian areas of the Soviet Union declared independence. Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and others fled the Soviet empire. The speed with which these formally subjugated regions left the Soviet Union was amazing. In spite of the fact the Russians controlled them for many decades, the moment a chance for freedom appeared they took it. The Communist Party no longer controlled Russia. This victory came suddenly and could hardly be fathomed until it was complete. Reagan left office in 1988 after two successful terms as president. He was a visionary who convinced the people of the United States to continue looking forward for the best days, because optimism was the tonic for the future.

George Bush number 41(or Bush the “elder”) was president of the United States when the Soviet Union collapsed, but
the
policies
of
Ronald
Reagan
won
the
Cold
War
for the Western Democracies. George Bush the elder worked his magic by helping the Soviets withdraw without bloodshed, which was common for such realignments in the past. Reagan viewed the Soviet Union as evil. Being evil, Reagan thought it could not last; therefore, if he concentrated on its weaknesses the USSR would fold. He was right, and he victoriously ended one of the longest, costliest, and most dangerous confrontations to threaten the world. President Ronald Reagan did what Hitler and Stalin could not, defeat Russia and cause the collapse of its empire. The cost of this Cold War contest cannot be calculated. Some estimates say the United States alone spent
8
trillion
dollars
and sacrificed at least 100,000 US lives during the conflict.

As the US economy recovered under Reagan, the world economy began to pick up as well. In England,
Margaret
Thatcher
managed to turn the tide against socialism for a while, and the British economy picked up after a period of rather tough government policies emphasizing growth rather than taxation and socialism. England was toying with the idea of becoming part of Europe, and the
Chunnel
(a tunnel between France and England) planning began. It would open in 1994.

By 1989, computers were being tied together forming the
World
Wide
Web
. This network grew to dominate the news and information sectors of the world. The Internet challenged governments’ abilities to control the content and reach of this new communication method. Wireless telephones were also on the horizon, and the mobile phone would become as ubiquitous as leaves on the trees. The modern world soon filled with chitchat invisibly flowing over the airwaves.

The European Economic Community (EC) formed its
common
market
in 1993, thereby expanding its trade and economic potential. The
Euro
, the EC’s currency, was introduced in 1999, and by 2008 it grew to be worth almost twice the US dollar. It appears the economic power of the EC will grow to become a dominant force in the Western world. In 1995, the
World
Trade
Organization
was created with the idea of facilitating international free trade. This too became a formidable part of the world economy forming in the twenty-first century. As Asia (Japan, Korea, and China) increases in economic power along with the European common market, it is apparent a new world economic order is forming. The impact of the World Wide Web, instant communications, the World Trade Organization, the computerization of the world, communication satellites, spy satellites, and so many other world-changing technologies, coupled with the growth of markets, will influence the twenty-first century massively. Accelerating change is now the most apparent product of the new century. What must be acknowledged is that the pace of change is becoming incredibly quick. Also, we must also acknowledge a large part of the world is
not
changing. Africa and the Middle East are still in the 18
th
Century except for their plethora of full automatic weapons. Islam still embraces a medieval mind-set, rejecting the changes the world is undergoing, and wanting to raze what the West identifies as progress. As the West and parts of Asia hasten away from the stagnate regions of the world, turmoil is predictable; but how much? Will the moribund areas of the earth be willing to destroy the dynamic peoples of the globe with atomic weapons, biologic terror weapons, or other armaments of mass murder?

A new economic world order will most probably lead to a political world order challenging the individualism of the West. The United Nations is already showing how the non-Western world rejects the Western ideology of individual freedom and individual empowerment. The Western Democracies are isolated in the United Nations by the tribal and totalitarian societies that dominate the rest of humankind. As technology and economic interdependence increase in importance, will the world be able to incorporate its widely divergent views on how people should live? Such wide differences have led to conflict in the past, and if history is our teacher, it is warning we must be vigilant of these differences leading to momentous disarray in the future.

Books and Resources:

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
by Derek Leebaert, probably the best book on the subject of the Cold War and its impacts.

Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA
by Tim Weiner, probably the best book on the failures of the American intelligence services and its costs.

At
the
Abyss,
An
Insider’s
History
of
the
Cold
War,
Thomas C. Reed, Ballantine Books, 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
:
excellent article and good overview of the Cold War.

 
Chapter 17

The Korean War