How America Got It Right by Bevin Alexander

Author:Bevin Alexander [Alexander, Bevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-23838-2
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group

FOURTEEN

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THE SOVIETS FALL

The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed two immense international movements—the disintegration of Communism, and the emergence of militant Islam. The United States was the catalyst for the collapse of Communism, but it was mainly a victim in the surge of anti-Western forces in the Middle East.

During this period the Soviet Union disappeared, Germany reunited, the Soviet satellites rushed into a market economy, Red China transformed itself into a mutant form of capitalism, and even Vietnam became less Red and more an emerging third world economy. Only one Stalinist state remained—North Korea, a hermit kingdom saddled with a deranged dictator, an oversized military, and an outdated industry producing goods no one wanted.1

Radical Islamist forces arose throughout the Middle East. There were two main reasons—frustration over the Arabs’ inability to defeat Israel, and the efforts of a militant fundamentalist minority to turn Islam into a bigoted, fanatical theocracy to disguise its centuries-long incapacity to build a successful civilization. The militants wished to drive the United States out of the Middle East, because its model of progress, success, and tolerance was a constant reminder of the failure of Islam.

The irrational hatred that this movement spawned was expressed in 1998 by Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network. He railed against America’s “occupation” of the holy land of Arabia, its “aggression” against Iraq, and its support of “the petty state of the Jews.” He called for the killing of Americans until their armies, “broken-winged, depart from all the lands of Islam.”2

Despite such explicit warnings, the United States would not recognize the severity of this threat until it struck directly on our shores.

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IMMENSE ECONOMIC PRESSURE from the United States pushed the Soviet Union to early collapse. But Communism would have failed in time under any circumstances. A command economy controlled by central bureaucrats who direct factories and farms to produce what the bureaucrats think is needed cannot survive except by brute force in competition with an economy that produces what customers want and will pay for.3 Communism also operates directly contrary to human nature. Where property belongs to all, it belongs to no one. If people cannot own property, they no longer value or protect it. Jobs that offer no incentives for advancement or creativity become onerous labor without purpose. Such jobs are performed grudgingly and with little concern for quality or results.4

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 rather than later because the United States got it right in a series of decisions stretching back before the end of World War II. Every American president challenged every aggressive move the Soviet Union attempted to make. This forced the Kremlin to match the military power of the United States and then to sustain this level year after year and decade after decade. No economy on earth could endure such a confrontation, and the Soviet command economy was notably unable to respond.

The Soviet system had worked well during the war to produce the tanks, guns, ammunition, and other war material needed to fight the Nazis.

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