[lit-ideas] Re: Who won, or lost, the Cold War

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 12:01:38 +0000 (GMT)

My goodness me. I had a simple response to Lawrence Helm's post but must now
address this more complicated one too. Shucks.


--- Teemu Pyyluoma <teme17@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> --- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Theorists from the Democratic Party argue that the
> > policy developed during
> > the Truman administration won the Cold War. 
> > Republican theorists argue that
> > Reagan's resolve won the Cold War.  To say that we
> > didn't win the Cold War
> > but instead the USSR simply collapsed would (check
> > me if I'm wrong oh Logic
> > Police) imply that it wasn't a War after all.

Simple answer: no, it would not imply there was no war - for it is possible
that there is a war and yet that one nation involved collapses for reasons
unconnected with that war (plague; an invasion from mars; poor
infrastructure).

And of course it was a _cold_ war. I emphasise this because I once heard a
lawyer (now a Q.C.) say there was no Cold War. This was intriguing. I thought
maybe his theory was that (a la '1984') the American and Soviet
administrations were conniving together in a phoney war of rhetoric so that
they could better control their own people and minimise dissent against them.
In fact, the lawyer's argument, which he maintained for about an hour before
the other participants retired shattered and bored, was simply this - there
was no Cold War because it wasn't a war, stupid. To which the answer is -
that's why they call it a _cold_ war, stoopider. Larry Kramer once aptly
remarked that a special circle in hell should be earmarked for such people..

But I digress: the central question is surely whether the Soviet system
collapsed because of its own inherent weaknesses or because of American
policy, or some combination? Whatever the answer we can surely still
maintain, without contradiction, that there was a Cold War. 


> If ~C(x) XOR ~C(y) -> ~W(x,y)
> "If x doesn't collapse, and y doesn't collapse, then
> there was no war between x and y."

This isn't really the question; which is - if x or y does collapse, for
reasons unrelated to a war, does that mean there was no war? I suggest "not
necessarily" in the case of either a conventional 'hot' or an entirely 'cold'
war.   

> Let x be Iran, y be Iraq, and W be Iran-Iraq war,
> then:
> Iran did not collapse, Iraq did not collapse,
> therefore there was no Iran-Iraq war.

Not the question.
 
> It should be noted that in the field of logic of war
> and peace, the controversial Liverpool school
> maintains that we can grasp the sufficent conditions
> of war with little mental effort. 

Does this mean _a_ little mental effort or _very_ little mental effort?

>Now given that while
> Soviet union was atheistic, no heaven, and finally
> ceased to exist as a country, still its citizens
> certainly seemed willing to die for it, which means
> that Lawrence was right after all. 

Lost as an eskimo in a jungle with this.

>Contra
> Liverpoolians, it has been argued that "easy if you
> try" is a contradiction in terms.

They are often called 'Liverpudlians' when not called 'thievin' scousers',
but - that aside - the point here escapes me.

For the record, it would seem Andreas is right that Soviet collapse had much
to do with corruption and fiscal mismanagment. That said, it might also be
the case that the arms race forced their hand, so that the Soviets realised
they could not 'win' or sustain themselves militarily. Instead, they
eventually saw that the only way forward was to allow the country to be taken
over by gangsters.

Donal
London
  



                
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