Lessons from Gorbachev's Doomed U.S.S.R and America's current Path - Research Paper Example

Lesson’s from Gorbachev's Doomed U.S.S.R and America's current Path Introduction Although there are a number of significant differences between the United States and the former USSR under Gorbachev, the centralization of the political power by the federal government and a number of other factors in the recent past have in many ways shifted America society towards a socialist society reminiscent of the Gorbachev's doomed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Prior to the disintegration of Soviet Union into its constituent republics, Gorbachev had unsuccessfully to lead a transition from the previous Brezhnev’s authoritarian and centralized system towards market socialism and pluralism. Gorbachev was a Lenin styled communist who felt that socialism was the only way to bring, democracy, freedom and enlightenment to the former USSR. He particularly feared that the US would teach Russia some wrong lessons about unbridled capitalism, greed and other forms of social inequalities. The years of cold war military build up at the expense of economic development resulted in the stagnation of the economic growth of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s attempt to streamline the communist system failed to bear any fruits and in the end resulted in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States was particularly opposed to the communist ideology of the Russian state and the totalitarian regimes such as those of Joseph Stalin further widened the differences between the two countries. Although the American federal government is founded on the constitutional union of states, the states do not have the actual power. Some of the contemporary alarming similarities between the U.S today and the Gorbachev's Doomed U.S.S.R include the current high military spending, Unsustainable foreign debt, unwinning wars (Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq) and a gridlocked governmental system that is disillusioned in a sense of grandeur. This paper critically analyzes the similarities between the current situation in the U.S and the former Gorbachev’s U.S.S.R. Bankruptcy race and the looming unsustainable foreign debt The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union has been characterized by interplay of economical, ideological and political factors that largely resulted in supper power rivalry throughout the cold war period. One of the remarkable similarities shared by the current United States and the former Soviet Union is a serious foreign dept crisis and a looming bankruptcy. Prior to its collapse Gorbachev's Doomed U.S.S.R was taking on foreign debt at unsustainable rates. A peak in the Russian oil production as well as low world prices at the time later sealed the fate of Soviet Union under Gorbachev. It is widely believed that Gorbachev’s doomed policies contributed more to the eventual demise of USSR. For example, his two main policies of Perestroika and glasnost significantly resulted in a political instability that eventually gave way to the dissolution of the Union (Service, 13). On the other hand, just like the former USSR, United States is also now facing similar economic problems and the current outstanding US national debt stands at over $16 trillion and is one of the largest debts owed by a single country in the world. Even before the current economic crisis, the US grew by nearly 50% and the fact that the US debt to GDP ratio now stands at more than 100% is a serious alarm to both the policy makers and the investors. According to many analysts, the high US national debt resulted from an accumulation of federal budget deficits with the largest contributor being President Obama through his tax cuts, economic stimulus package (bailout) and increased military spending. President Bush also contributed to the current unsustainable debt through the war on terror, bank bailouts and a series of tax cuts. As a result of the current huge foreign debt, an unsustainable account deficit, energy crisis and a failing currency, the United States is considered to be technically bankrupt. One of the potential long term effects of the current high national debts is that will further slow down the economy of the United States thereby putting the worlds only super power on the brink of economic collapse just like was witnessed in the former Soviet Union prior to its collapse. Additionally roughly a third of the total American debt is held by foreign countries and it is anticipated that overtime, the reduced demand for the U.S treasuries may further put the United States on the same path with Gorbachev's Doomed U.S.S.R. Doomed policies Another important lesson that can be learnt from the collapse of the Soviet Union was the important contribution of the unpopular policies that go against the core values of the Union. According to many experts, Michael Gorbachev’s doomed reform policies contributed even more to the collapse of Union of the Soviet Socialist republics. For example, Gorbachev’s two main policies of Perestroika and glasnost significantly resulted in a political instability that eventually gave way to the dissolution of the Union. At the height of the cold war, President Ronald Reagan convinced oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia to reduce their oil prices to reduce the Soviet Unions profits from its oil products. Coupled with huge military spending during the cold war arms race, Reagan’s strategy resulted in the complete depletion of the Russian hard currency reserves and the beginning of its economic problems. In an attempt to reform USSR, Gorbachev introduced the policy of Perestroika which sought to combine free market concepts with a centrally controlled economy. Unfortunately the policies lead to further economic hardship characterized by high inflation and widespread shortages of consumer goods. This was particularly attributed to the fact that the attempts by Michael Gorbachev to carry out economic reform in the Soviet Union were not sufficiently radical enough to restart the collapsing economy of the union in the late 1980s. For example, although to some extent the reforms resulted in the decentralization of Russian economy, the fundamental elements of the previous Stalinist system such as government monopoly over property ownership and price controls. Consequently the people became even more disillusioned with Gorbachev’s Soviet system. Additionally the underperformance of the economy of the Soviet Union under the policy of perestroika eventually forced Gorbachev’s government to initiate several spending cuts and the USSR could no longer afford to keep its famous Red army divisions across the Eastern Europe. As a result anti-communist revolutions hastened all over Eastern Europe and other Soviet leaning countries. Such revolutions only served to fasten the collapse of USSR. On the other hand, Glasnost policy which was meant to liberalize the Soviet censorship and introduce political openness resulted in the exposure of political, economic and social problems. Consequently many people began to express their views regarding the failures of the Soviet government. One of the unintended political consequences of Gorbachev's doomed glasnost policy was widespread political upheavals particularly in the Eastern Europe that quickly spread to many republics within the Soviet Union. The constituent republics of the Soviet Union soon began to blame the federal government in Moscow for their economic and social problems. The dissatisfaction caused many of the states to demand their independence and a number of referendums held in most of the discontented republics favored independence from USSR thereby leading to its eventual dissolution in December 1991. One of the similarities of between the current situation in the United States and the former Soviet Union under the leadership of Gorbachev is the fact that both Countries have attempted to make a society the opposite of what it is. Consequently the eventual collapse of Gorbachev's doomed U.S.S.R is therefore an important lesson that can be used to predict the future of the American hegemony and superpower status. Although the United States was founded on a liberal capitalist society, recent events suggest that the policies of President Obama are against the core values of our society and America is slowly drifting towards a socialist society. Some of the social policies of President Obama such as increasing taxes on the wealthy and have to some extent attempted to confiscate the wealth of hardworking Americans in order to subsidize redistributive programs such as Obamacare. His stimulus package meant for creating more jobs and jump starting renewed economic growth have also pushed America into a socialist society. Additionally, the US federal government has introduced a number of price control measures that have in essence sought to restrain the free exchange of value among consenting Citizens. War War was another important factor that contributed to the eventual demise of the Soviet Union. As the USSR attempted to support and protect communist regimes in many parts of the world, a number of cold war crises resulted into bloody wars. The war in Afghanistan was one of the key factors in the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The war affected the Soviet politics in four emphasized way, perception effects in that it challenged the view of leaders about the effectiveness of using the military to hold the empire together and also to intervene in foreign countries. The military effects damaged the reputation of the Red Army, created cleavage between the party and the military, and confirmed that the Red Army was not unshakable, which encouraged the non Russian republics to push for independence. The legitimacy effects was another factor, this provided non-Russians with a general cause to demand independence since they viewed this war as a Russian war fought by non-Russian against Afghanistan and finally the participation effect which created new forms of political participation and began to transform the press before glasnost, kicked off the first shots of glasnost and shaped a significant mass of war Afghanistan who formed new civil organization which ended up weakening the political domination of the communist party. The breakdown was mostly attributed to complete and/or leadership factors. Most scholars generally viewed the Afghanistan war as a minor and containable conflict that had minimal impact on the basic institution of the Soviet Union as compared to the other causes that led to the fall of Soviet Union. However this war was actually one of the key causes to the fall, along with systemic and leadership based factors, of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The repeated collapse in this war altered the Soviet’s observation of the efficiency of using force to keep non-Soviet nationalities within the Union; this devastated the confidence and legitimacy of the army, interrupted domestic cohesion and speeded up glasnost. Lastly, it is also worth noting that the wars waged by the Soviet Union critically impacted domestic politics by creating durable social changes and redistributing political power among groups. Actually a report showed how wars may establish literature. The Soviets intervened in Afghanistan in December 1979, though the Afghanistan war at the beginning was visualized by Soviet leaders as a small-scale intervention , it developed into a decade-long war involving nearly one million Soviet soldiers killing and injuring tens of thousands of them. The effect of failure of this war to the Soviet Union was weakened military and conservative anti-reform forces and hastened glasnost and perestroika. These failures showed that Soviet army was not unconquerable encouraging non-Russian republics to push for independence with minimal fear of a military aftermath. The similarities of the wars waged by the Gorbachev's doomed U.S.S.R and the Contemporary wars in which the United States is involved in include the fact that both countries have significantly messed with other countries as well as themselves in their attempts to impose and spread their ideologies. For example, just like in the war of the Soviet Union’s Afghan war, the contemporary wars of decline have not only exposed the shortcomings in the American hegemonic role in global politics but have revealed its vulnerabilities as well as the limitations of its technology. The wars have also harmed American regional partnerships and relationship that took a number of years to construct. For example, during the Afghanistan war, the cross border air strikes which resulted into the deaths of Pakistani soldiers and this has created a serious diplomatic issue. Works Cited Service, Robert. A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin. London: Penguin Press, 2003. Print. Read More