Jay,

>I don't recall in this discussion that a distinction was made between choice and necessity. It doesn't matter. If they chose due to US pressure, or felt it was necessary due to US pressure, it's all the same.

If it was neccesity and the USSR had not choice, you can argue the US did get the USSR on it knees. However if it was because of deliberately making the wrong decisions you could argue they have no-one else to blame but themselves.

the US, and the allied pressure was not the primary, nor secundary reason of the fall of the USSR. In this whole discussion I did not hear anyone talk about rebellion of the USSR states (e.g. poland, tsjechslovakia) I wonder why ?? Maybe no one really cares to look at the whole picture.


>>Ohh, insults..... You'll have to do better than that Dan. The arms race was a drain on the russian economy, in so far you're right. However, the choice of keeping up with the arms race against the US was a choice, not a neccesity to the ongoing existance of the USSR. By then the USSR already did know that the cold war would not heat up. It was their decision to start the war in afghanistan. It knew that nuclear threat was enough to keep the status quo. IOW the enormous expenses they did, was their choice, not the one of the US. You simply cannot bring an empire down by threats (or phychological pressure) alone.