ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Cold War: The Collapse of the Soviet Unionwas spending nearly one-third of its GNP on capital investment,with most of the sum dedicated to the military. Themilitary was consuming such a large portion of the Sovieteconomy for two reasons: the Soviet involvement inAfghanistan and the arms race with the United States.These two events would weigh heavily in the Soviet economicdemise and lead to its inevitable fall. A weak economyprevented the Soviet Union from reacting appropriatelyto each experience.The stagnant Soviet economy of the 1970s wouldhave faired far worse had it not been for vast oil andnatural gas production propping up the economy. By thelate 1970s, technological backwardness and poor managementunder the centrally planned Soviet economyresulted in depleted oil and gas reserves. This led Brezhnevto turn his eye towards the oil and gas reserves of CentralAsia. Afghanistan had long been a relatively undevelopedcountry comprised of numerous semi-autonomous ethnicgroups. Brezhnev assumed that the Soviet Union couldachieve a quick and decisive victory over the country andexpand its influence of Communism into Central Asia.The United States and the rest of the world quicklycondemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.The United States also provided covert support to themujahideen, or Afghani resistance fighters. Rapid turnoverin Soviet leadership following the death of Brezhnevin 1982 also hampered the war effort. The short-livedregimes of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko providedfor an inconsistent Afghan policy. The Soviet militaryoperation quickly bogged down and faced stiff resistancein the harsh terrain of Afghanistan.The Soviets erroneously assumed that since theAfghans were economically disadvantaged, they wouldbe quickly defeated and embrace communism. The oppositeresult happened. As the Afghans had little to lose bycontinuing to fight, instead of driving Afghanistan to communism,the Soviet invasion forged the Afgani Islamicresistance. A decade after the invasion, Soviet troopswithdrew.The war in Afghanistan had an even more adverseeffect on the Soviet Union than the Vietnam War had onthe United States. Thousands of Soviet troops died in aconflict that resulted in the defeat of a superpower by adeveloping country. Moreover, the conflict strained analready weak economy. The conflict angered Soviet citizens,and they began demanding accountability from thestate. Brezhnev and his successors intended the war inAfghanistan to reassert the supremacy of the Soviet Union.Instead, the conflict proved that the superpower’smight was waning.The war in Afghanistan also distracted the SovietUnion from its arms race with the United States, thusallowing America to gain a technological advantage. TheUnited States ratcheted up pressure on the U.S.S.R. throughseveral means. The Reagan administration began placingmissiles in Western Europe, primarily in Western Germany,strategically located to intimidate Eastern Europeand the Soviet Union. Reagan also began building up theU.S. military. Reagan commissioned new aircraft carriersand expanded America’s stealth aircraft program. To theSoviets, these actions signaled a widening weapons gap,particularly in terms of technologically advanced weapons.Perhaps the greatest threat to the Soviet Union wasthe United States’ Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), alsoknown conventionally as Star Wars. The SDI was a plannedsatellite based weapons system that would detect anddestroy missiles fired at the United States. Such a technologicaladvancement would have rendered Soviet ICBMsuseless. The Soviet Union tried to dissuade the UnitedStates from implementing the SDI, but the Reagan administrationrefused to back away from the proposal. In reality,the SDI was only in the technological planning stages;the Soviets, however, bought America’s bluff, promptinga quick and expensive advance in their lagging militarytechnology. This increased spending further acceleratedthe Soviet economic decline.Realizing a weapons gap, the Soviet Union beganpushing the Reagan administration for nuclear arms talksfollowing the death of Brezhnev in 1982. The U.S. soonentered negotiations over the Strategic Arms ReductionTreaty (START). However, numerous changes in post-Brezhnev Soviet leadership, Solidarity strikes in Poland,and other issues prevented the completion of the STARTduring the Reagan administration.Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War. After a decade ofover-inflated military expenditures, dwindling oil revenue,and a centrally-planned economy that was too rigidto adapt to consumer demands, Mikhail Gorbachev, uponassuming office, declared the Soviet economy to be in a“pre-crisis.” Gorbachev immediately transformed the faceof Soviet politics. Gorbachev quickly appointed new membersto the Politboro and Secretariat, ridding each ofmany hardline, longtime bureaucrats. Gorbachev alsoattempted to reform the KGB, replacing many agents andbureaucrats. Despite the shake-up, the KGB’s operationalpower emerged from Gorbachev’s early reforms relativelyunscathed.After reforming the government, Gorbachev set outto reform the economy and ultimately, Soviet society.Gorbachev’s economic reforms (perestroika, or restructuring),were perceived as noble, but poorly executed. TheTwelfth Five Year Plan tried ambitiously and quickly toreform the Soviet economy. Gorbachev sought to updateindustrial equipment and computer systems, while simultaneouslyexpecting workers to produce higher qualityproducts in greater quantities. Gorbachev also tried todecentralize the economy by giving different regions greatercontrol over industry. All of these goals proved to beunrealistic given Gorbachev’s timetable to dismantle thegargantuan Soviet bureaucracy in favor of a more streamlinedand efficient system.By 1986, Gorbachev also began experimenting withthe notion that greater democracy, if presented in the240 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security