Everyone was surprised, including the scholarly community. The Soviet Union was overrated even by its most vociferous enemies.
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Everyone was surprised, including the scholarly community. The Soviet Union was overrated even by its most vociferous enemies.
To some degree yes, but it wasn't a lightning bolt from a clear sky for those more economically minded scholars of foreign policy. Seeing how the planned economy spent the 80's subjected to unstable oilprices along with military buildup there was a proper crisis looming.
The CIA never tried to collapse the USSR, nor had it as their goal. The most they did was help intellectuals defect. The arming of the Mujahadeen was to inflict a foreign policy defeat on the USSR and stop them from invading Iran or Pakistan. About as related to the internal politics of the USSR as arming the Vietcong was attempt to collapse the US.
The USSR collapsed despite an excellent effort by the KGB. The USA prevailed in spite of a mediocre showing by the CIA. The Cold War was by and large won and lost by factors beyond the control of intelligence agencies. The CIA had a mixed record - some real successes and some spectacular failures. Considering the means at their disposal and the objectives they had you have to consider the KGB to have been quite successful within their range of action and influence.
Actually US never wanted USSR to collapse and was very supportive till the very end. So why is that? Because USSR had huge arsenal of weapons and collapse could have potentially triggered another bloody war. US and USSR started diplomatically get closer to others during Hrutsev and Breznev. Why Gorby wanted to end cold war and ended it USSR and US had much more common intrest than conflicts.
Also good to point out there are some unwritten laws on spying and intelligence:
1. Do not assasinate enemys leader. This is very old rule. Napoleon was not executed, Hitler was not assasinated and assasination of Kenedy was against intrest of USSR.
2. Space programs are out of sabotage and other damaging activity. Simply because it is too expensive. Even minor fault can destroy everything, so sabotaging space rockets would be extreamly easy and could potentially kill whole space industry.
3. You can only assasinate your own traitors during peace time and you dont execute enemys agents. There is very little incidents that enemys agents are being assasinated or killed. Usually they were captured, made double agents, or traded to own agents because it is more usefull. If your agent defects and starts to leak information it is okay to kill him. This will most likely cause some flamewar here
Also good to point out there are some unwritten laws on spying and intelligence:
1. Do not assasinate enemys leader. This is very old rule. Napoleon was not executed, Hitler was not assasinated and assasination of Kenedy was against intrest of USSR.
2. Space programs are out of sabotage and other damaging activity. Simply because it is too expensive. Even minor fault can destroy everything, so sabotaging space rockets would be extreamly easy and could potentially kill whole space industry.
3. You can only assasinate your own traitors during peace time and you dont execute enemys agents. There is very little incidents that enemys agents are being assasinated or killed. Usually they were captured, made double agents, or traded to own agents because it is more usefull. If your agent defects and starts to leak information it is okay to kill him. This will most likely cause some flamewar here
Because of it could be YOU. In history of Europe after French revolution when modern diplomacy was created in Vienna monarchs most likely understood they can die nor their realms are eternal. They simply did not want to die because of pesky politics: Wilhelm II wasnt executed as well, Russian exiles outside Russia were not executed by other states and so on. Hitler was not assasinated nor tryed he assasinate other allies leaders, there are simply some rules in total war after all. Actually even today it is very hard to sue and imprison powerfull politics: good examples are Berlusconi and various dictators from Latin America. Reason why Romanovs were executed was because of Bolsheviks were truely revolutionary and USSR was exluded from global diplomacy for many years. Later they also started to behave like others. They are special people with ancient priviledges in our democratic states.
Because if you start offing the leaders of national governments, all the other remaining leaders are going to band together their resources and send assassins round to your house.
EDIT: How can my response be that short, and still be ninja'd by a post that long?
Disagree with that one, its just that the agent vanishes, or its made to look like suicide.3. You can only assasinate your own traitors during peace time and you dont execute enemys agents. There is very little incidents that enemys agents are being assasinated or killed. Usually they were captured, made double agents, or traded to own agents because it is more usefull. If your agent defects and starts to leak information it is okay to kill him. This will most likely cause some flamewar here
I saw an interview with the former head of the STAZI (E. German secret service) who claimed that the west did not send a single agent who they did not turn into a double agent. Whilst this may have simply been BS boasting the STAZI certainly had a fearsome reputation during the cold war. I tend to agree that the KGB and other communist secret services were significantly better at human intelligence but generally could not keep up with the west's signals inteligence.
As an additional note both sides allowed agents of the other side to exist as a method of communication when diplomatic channels were not suitable. It is very important that if a blip appears on the screen of a missile monitoring facility that the infomation be able to be cross-checked so nuclear war is not started by mistake. This exact senario occured on at least one occasion.
As an additional note both sides allowed agents of the other side to exist as a method of communication when diplomatic channels were not suitable. It is very important that if a blip appears on the screen of a missile monitoring facility that the infomation be able to be cross-checked so nuclear war is not started by mistake. This exact senario occured on at least one occasion.
