Talk:Cold War/Archive 2
The majority of the content of this article on an important, controverial subject is new; yet nobody else seems interested. But regardless, I'll filling the gaps little by little. 172
Right now, the biggest gaps needing to be filled are the Sino-Soviet Split and the implications of the post-Cold War world. The latter is a heated debate among political scientists, historians, economists, and other social scientists with an abundant array of literature needing to be covered somewhere. I don't know if it belongs in this article or another one. If it belongs in another article, what title would people prefer? 172
This article is well-written and detailed, but I feel that that the criticism was unbalanced against the West, and almost seems to be intentionally misleading in some places. For example, in the section about the collapse, it says "Today, over half the population in the former Soviet Union is now impoverished in a country where poverty had been largely non-existent; life expectancy has dropped drastically; and GDP has halved." Millions of starved Russian peasants would probably have disagreed with you about proverty being non-existant.
Also, repeatedly enclosing the term free in quotation marks whenever describing the West is a rather juvenile technique, and I would go so far as to say that it is an insult to the legacy of the hundreds of thousands of people shot by the KGB and millions of people shipped off the the Gulag. Lastly, referring to the Khmer Rouge as "US backed" seems to be something of a stretch, and seems to imply that they were as much of a US proxy force as the Contras. I do not believe there is any evidence at all that the US provided them with any military of economic aid: we simply did not actively oppose them. While I always appreciate attempts to wade through all the propaganda and the distortions that it caused in writings from the time (this article does it nicely in some places), this article seems to do it in a rather one-sided way. Mprudhom 19:56 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- Come on. A week ago or so I was accused of writing from the perspective of a Reaganite Cold Warrior neoconervative hawk. Now this. This article isn't supposed to be a form of anti-Communist indoctrination. All right? Keep in mind that the Cold War took place after 1945; you are alluding to events that were occurring under Stalin in the 1930s.
- The section to which you objected is also completely factual. We are speaking of the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, after all, not the 1930s. Not impoverished does not mean prosperous. This is just in terms of basic access to amenities like food, clothing, and shelter; universal employment; and universal access to health and education. I myself wrote about the structural problems of such as system, despite the near non-existence of poverty. 172
- (I put in colons for the response of the previous paragraph so it comes out as a threaded discussion). Perhaps some of my criticisims where a bit harsh, but you shouldn't accuse me of wanting the article to be "a form of anti-Communist indoctrination"; I certainly don't want that. Maybe some other people can chime in with their opinions of whether the coverage appears biased or not. Anyway, you are obviously more an expert on the subject than I. However, I still think that saying that the Khmer Rouge was "US Backed" is simply not true. I would be interested in seeing any sources (that aren't Chomsky) that provide evidence to the contrary. Mprudhom 01:35 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Maybe you'd like to do some research on this and rewrite that section. I plan to rewrite it, because right now the section on Cambodia simply isn't woven into the rest of the text well enough. That's the case with much of the article, which still requires considerable work. 172
My god! This article is huge - could you break it up into useful pieces 172? 54 kilobytes and growing is not an encyclopedia article. For example I wanted to put this piece of info in this article: "On July 20, 1948 President Harry S. Truman issued the first peacetime military draft in the United States amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union." But since this article is so HUGE I couldn't figure out where that info best fits. --mav 06:30 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Very good job, Mav. I really like the sentence! I'll find a home for it in the article. And you're right about the length. Someday, it can become a series of articles. 172
- The article can be cut farily easily if Intelligence agencies' roles and the Cold War and culture are made into separate daughter articles. 172 09:35, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)
"As another example of shifting courses among the increasingly independent-minded Western allies, this time, it is France that has opposed US adventurism in the Middle East during the 2003 "pre-emptive" attack on Iraq, a reversal of roles from the Suez crisis. " Is this sentence realy at his place here and adventurism is a POV ? Ericd 01:43, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
As it is this article is disbalanced. It relates in detail the Vietnam War, this is unecessary there is also an article about. It forgot the consequence of the Cuba missiles crisis (red telephone, revision of nuclear doctrines) it also forget european missiles crisis in the 80's (Pershing vs. SS20). Ericd 01:59, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
This article is POV from the first to the last line it's a performance to insert the name of George W. Bush and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and omiting words like MAD and ICBM. Ericd 10:11, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The first line makes me thik that it was a conflict between the USA and NATO. :-)
I've removed : "As another aside, Iran is yet another example of the parallels between 1950s and contemporary US foreign policy. Popular anger, seething and repressed for a generation, eventually culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to a hostage crisis that would perhaps later bring down the Carter administration. Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, from the standpoint of the US, had the audacity to overthrow CIA-imposed absolutist regime, is a part of President Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil" along with North Korea. Korea is a focus of George W. Bush's administration, another administration, like Reagan's, notable for its striking affinity with the "massive retaliation" polices of John Foster Dulles. "
POV and out of the subject. Ericd 10:29, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
172 You have restored all as it was without any comment and marqued the reversion as minor. You still don't play the game of NPOV. Can you at least answer to this question : What's the use of the Soviet coat of arms ? Ericd 17:43, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
First, let me respond to the restoration of the photo. In a long article pictures make the layout more attractive. Please feel free to add more pictures where another picture cannot be seen in the browser screen.
- I'm a great fan of pictures or photo but the choice of a picture is non-neutral. Why this one ? A map of influence zone in Europe will be more informative. There is also a bunch of free of right photos of Kennedy in Berlin, or Nixon in China. Why not these one ?
- Ericd 20:02, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- Why this one? It's one that I could find. I don't have a picture of JFK or Nixon in China. The coat of arms was placed in the section on ideology and diverging visions of the postwar world, so the coat of arms was something ideological, a sickle and hammer over a globe, representing world Communism and the Soviet vision for the world. 172 06:04, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Second, I also restored part of the section on 1950s US foreign policy because it describes continuity between Cold War-era foreign policy and both pre-Cold War and post-Cold War US interventionism. That section illuminates how the Cold War influenced the present-day Middle East and the US role in the region. This section would be of interest to a historian trying to discern the origins of the Cold War, and especially the relationship between the 1950s era of "massive retaliation" and long-term Western strategic and economic interests in the Middle East pre-dating and outliving the Cold War. 172 18:17, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- I agree that there's a continuity in US foreign policy but isn'it a bit out of topic ? This article huge and very weak on many points nuclear doctrines and SDI seems to have played a minor role. Afghanistan is worth more than 2 lines don't you think ? The fact than half of Europe was more or less Russian-occupied is minored. Russian interventions in Hungary is forgotten, Solidarnosc in Poland doesn't exists. The role played by the Pope is also worth a mention.
- As it is, this article is huge, incomplete and disbalanced.
Is it possible to make something more complete and more concise ? You could develop an in-depth analysis os US foreign policies as a subtopic in another article ?
- Ericd 20:02, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
This is a very broad and complex topic, and it will always be possible to add something. I'm fairly sure that the invasion of Hungary is mentioned; If not, I'll get around to adding it. I'm also certain that SDI or "star wars" is mentioned. As for your other suggestions, I'd be happy to see them added, but I won't add it myself, since it could perhaps be better placed in an article on the collapse of Communism. 172 06:00, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Its to large (but that is also a VERY good thing :-)) maybe it could be split up in chunks based on eras? 1945 (when Churchill said "Iron Wall") - 1953 (Stalin's Death) - 1961 (Cuban missile crisis) - 1975 (End of Vietnam War) - 1983 (Afganistan) - 1991 (USSR collapse). But I guess there are 1000 ways to subdivide the article. BL 06:19, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Robert Merkel:
I reverted your edit- the content that you removed sketched the concerns of US policymakers over the effects of Détente.
- Dear 172:
- I have reverted your reversion of Robert Merkel's edits. There was (to my mind) very little actual content that was removed, apart from resurrected propaganda without any referent except as a demonstration of poppycock offered as propaganda at the time. Personally I think it should be recorded and also the (possible) western acceptance of such poppycock can freely be recorded on wikipedia, but not without labeling it as the poppycock it was! -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
Retrospectively, most Russia specialists agree that Détente was more beneficial to the USSR. While the end of Détente certainly was not determining, most specialists with hindsight notice that slowing growth correlated with the re-escalation of the arms race.
- Without getting into an argument over the facts, so what? Has nothing to do with the edits in question... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
Those "meaningless" statistics removed to "neutralize" the article were not there to tilt the article in a pro-Soviet bent, but encapsulate by example the pessimistic morale in the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate United States.
- If that was your intention, may I suggest you avail yourself of some instruction on how to put your point across, since you certainly weren't doing too well in that department... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
We are dealing temporally with roughly the years in the US characterized by failures in foreign policy, such as the most poignant blow in Southeast Asia, but also failures in Iran, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Southern Africa, etc.); growing suspicion of the federal government, due in large measure to Watergate, US casualties in Vietnam, and the divisive social conflicts of the '60s and '70s; and the end of postwar prosperity, with rising unemployment and inflation mostly due to rising energy prices. In fact, some observers at the time were arguing that the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War!
- So what! We certainly shouldn't presuppose the US propaganda was even near the truth either, but still it wouldn't even be a tough assignment to tally up a much more impressive litany of things that appeared to be going right, and still in retrospect appear to have been good choices. Both sides should be represented. And Robert Merkels edit, even though not perfect, was 'much closer to being neutral. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
And in this country these people were generally not pro-Soviet; in fact, the statistics that you removed would be most emphasized by a conservative favoring an aggressive US foreign policy! This revert is one example of how often someone can remove crucial content, failing to understand that a historical fact is really evidence, not simply, for instance, "something good said about the US" or "something good said about the Soviet Union."
- I definitely have to disagree here. Talking about the 75% raise in wages and heightened industrial production, is just pure and simple poppycock. Removing it definitely doesn't deface anything of significant historical importance. "Crucial content", I don't think so! Removing and revealing a facade, is closer to the truth. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
The professional academics on Wikipedia are so fed up with this. To so many users, everything in an article on history or politics has to be normative (i.e. beliefs and values). NPOV to them means a balance of "good things" and "bad things". Academia too recognizes that an encyclopedia should strive for neutrality. But historians really recognize what this really means. Individuals have their own moralities, ideologies, and values. But disputes among historians mostly involve how factors affected the course of history, and what does the end result mean. In a sense, it's all squabbling over what facts are more significant in affecting something than others.
- Very nicely put. I really hope you speak for all professional academics on Wikipedia on this matter. But, why don't you act by it? Why? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
It's essential to keep conclusions tentative and measured without years of hindsight. Policy should be examined in the temporal confines of the context (i.e. what was generally assumed at the time in question), not in the context of what we know now. With that in mind, the article will have to note that a number of things were appeared to be on the bright side for the Soviet Union at the period in question.
- Even if one granted that this was a justification for including every bit of soviet propaganda one could find, and every bit of western propaganda screaming: "they are ahead of us!", don't you think it would be only rudimentarily professional to label propaganda as such? I am just asking. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
The outcome of the Cold War was not known to observers in the 1970s a decade and a half in advance. Scholars still have not reached a consensus on whether or not the Soviet Union was fatalistically bound to collapse, or if the outcome of the Cold War was predetermined. Some wonder if Soviet collapse could have been avoided if some strategic decisions had been made on their part or if different policy decisions had been employed by the US. I myself have done some work examining such a more agent-centered approach. While I don't want to bore anyone with details, I'll just say that a consensus on such a sweeping deterministic assumption is extremely rare.
Thus, such a section sketching a picture of trends in the twilight years of Détente for both superpowers is an important context for discussing the frame of reference of policymakers and the public before the election of Reagan, the end of Détente, and the more aggressive policies of the Reagan administration. 172 21:07, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- Not disagreeing with the last bits of your post at all... -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 20:59, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
"The outcome of the Cold War was not known to observers in the 1970s a decade and a half in advance."
IMO they were some turning points that need to developped :
- Hungary and Czekoslovakia, a real turn-off for those who were looking for some Finland-like solution in Europe,
- Neutralization of China,
- Afghanistan (a fatal mistake for USSR IMO),
- Reagan policy (especially the SDI),
- The choice of the USSR to compete in the arm race instead of increasing living standards,
- Poland (cf. Hungary and Czekoslovakia) and the influence of the Pope.
Ericd 22:15, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I notice that the US-backed Khmer Rouge are still there. Ericd 22:25, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I reverted the non-neutral terminology, which does not reflect any consensus in history or political science, characteristic of Fred Bauder. Fred Bauder is a valuable contributor and a smart guy, but he's prone to act as an ideologue when any issue involving Communism comes up.
I removed the term "totalitarian" from the intro. This term is a typology, not an official regime-type codified by a constitution (e.g., absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, Communist state, republic, federal republic, confederation, parliamentary democracy, military regime, etc.). Wikipedia articles have to use the official, constitutionally-derived government-type.
Government-types, as opposed to regime typologies, are universally accepted. But sometimes official government-types tell us very little. For instance, Nepal's theoretically and constitutionally as constitutional monarchy right now, but in practice it is an absolute monarchy. Since political scientists always consider regime-type as a variable, they have developed qualitative typologies in order to consider other characteristics. And the term "totalitarian" is one of them. But it does not belong in the beginning of this article because there is simply no consensus behind applying this term to all constituent regimes of the Warsaw Pact.
Some classify the post-Stalin Soviet Union as "post-totalitarian" because certain characteristics of "totalitarianism" were no longer evident, such as unrestrained leadership. After Stalin, the top leadership base was becoming more constrained horizontally by institutions that were becoming more and more influential in the party, ministerial, and state decisional flow. Hence, there was the considerable bureaucratic or institutional pluralism of "post-totalitarianism". On the other hand, others reject the "totalitarian" model wholeheartedly as a valuable typology, and prefer "civilian-led authoritarian regime" or "single-party state." Others apply the "post-totalitarian" typology to the Soviet Union, but not to all governments in the Warsaw Pact. Many of the most influential political scientists today apply "mature post-totalitarianism" to Hungary (due to the growing economic pluralism stemming from the Kadar economic reforms); and "authoritarianism" to Poland, where the elements of civil and economic society of the previous era were not uprooted to the extent they were in the Soviet Union, especially due to the relatively small scale of collectivization.
Few Soviet specialists in the West were using the "totalitarian" model by the Brezhnev years, preferring "post-totalitarian" due to its "bureaucratic pluralism." And why? Not because they liked the Soviet Union, as I'm sure the Fred Bauders of the hard ideological right are assuming, but because they wanted to understand the inner workings of the decisional flow of the Soviet Union in order to design effective policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. You don't want to set foreign policy when you have a model that obscures reality, do you? Now, this isn't just a concern of policy-makers, but also historians. I don't give a damn what model makes a regime seem more or less unsavory. The Soviet Union existed spatially at a certain period temporally. I just want a model that illuminates, rather than obscures, what was significant in the past and in reality.
While it's obvious to me why a typology, which does not relfect a consensus in academia on the post-Stalin USSR, does not belong in a neutral article, let me give some examples for those who conflate typology with government-type. First, let me explain the more widely accepted typology, "post-totalitarianism." The post-totalitarian model assumes that a regime went through a totalitarian period; during which they completely reshaped society, and wiped out the means of the support-bases of the ancien regime to mobilize opposition. But after this stage; party-state institutional practices have become so rationalized, regularized, and institutionalized that organizations and certain individuals, through horizontal integration; are able to affect decisions from above. Second, let me give some examples illustrating where this model might better explain the characteristics of the Soviet regime. Take into consideration the abortive Kosygin reforms of the early Brezhnev years. The top state leadership wanted limited market reforms, which retrospectively might have saved the Soviet Union, but the planning ministries did not. And the latter group prevailed. Planning ministries wanted to ensure that the ministries would keep proliferating as occupational specialization grew more complex (to protect their role in society). They prevailed over the top leadership base by drafting more complex planning arrangements; rendering the ability of managers of state enterprises to affect pricing, chose the destination of inputs, and chose the destination of outputs, far more difficult. Such restraints on the aims of leadership are not assumed in the totalitarian model.
I use the "post-totalitarian typology" vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, but I wouldn't place this term in an article because this typology isn't universally accepted. Nor will I allow Fred Bauder to inset his typology, which is accepted even less often by Eastern European, post-Communist, Soviet, and Russian specialists. 172 01:17, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)