how would ron paul have handled the cold war?

[trey4sports]

Ive been taught throught pub. ed. that we wont the cold war because we gave economic aid to countries deciding between capitalism and communism thus stopping the spread of communism. Since RP doesnt believe in financial aid to foreign countries how would we have won the cold war with RP as president? granted the ultimate destruction of the USSR was due to a weak currency, but wouldnt many countries have chose communism over capitalism if the USSR was giving financial handouts to these developing countries???

[ChickenHawk]

What the Soviet's were doing was none of our buisness. If they dominated the entire world that is between them and the countries they invaded. We would only act if they attacked us.

[Defining Obscene]

There wouldn't have been a cold war in the first place.

[ChickenHawk]

There wouldn't have been a cold war in the first place.

That may be true. He would have stayed out of WW2 so the Nazis might have beat the Soviets. Of course he would have stayed out of WW1 so the Nazi would have never come to power. On the other hand you can't assume the consequences of interventionism is always worse than the consequences of non-interventionism. There is no way to know what would have happened if things didn't happen the way they did.

[Joseph Hart]

Just say we elected Ron Paul to stop a cold war I believe he would have talked to Russia alot more. Sign no treaty.

[noxagol]

Communism will always end in disaster. The only reason the Soviet's held on for so long was their unified hatred of the US driving them.

[fisharmor]

Remember that we officially entered WWII because of the Japanese. Of course, they probably still remembered how we intervened in their business pretty much nonstop beginning in 1854.

I guess the lesson there is, if you can throw a couple nukes at them, they get pretty docile. Maybe MacArthur was on to something. Or maybe we've been doing this much longer than anyone realizes.

[Standing Like A Rock]

so half of the world becomes communist and such a large communist economy would not be able to hold itself up and would collapse. RP wouldn't need to do anything because communism, especially on such a widespread scale, would fail.

[lucius]

Communism will always end in disaster. The only reason the Soviet's held on for so long was their unified hatred of the US driving them.

Inaddition to western technology transfers and tax dollars:

In the 1960's British-born Dr. Anthony Sutton was a Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute when he discovered that, in spite of the Cold War, the US was supplying the USSR with its technology, including weapons used against American soldiers in Vietnam. Sutton dug deeper and discovered that Wall Street had sponsored both the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Nazi Germany. The resulting books which are on line cost Dr. Sutton his academic career.

THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY: http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/index.html
WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER: http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/index.html
WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION: http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/index.html

"Our Western history is every bit as distorted, censored and largely useless as that of Hitler's Germany or the Soviet Union or Communist China..."~Dr. Anthony Sutton

Follow with:

The Patton Papers 1940-1945 by Blumenson
From Major Jordan’s Diaries by George Jordan
The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben by Joseph Borken
Geneva versus Peace by Saint-Aulaire

20th century history and the cold war take on a whole new dimension--a tax-paying, cannon-fodder, sucker born every minute.


It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.~by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired

War is a Racket: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Ron Paul would of avoided much of these abysmal boondoggles.

[mmink15]

I suggest to the OP who wants this question answered to turn to Ron Paul's book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom. This book is a collection of Ron Paul's speeches on the house floor about foreign policy, and he was there during the Cold War years so you can get the opinions of the man first-hand. I don't have my copy on me or I'd whip out some quotes, gotta do a litle research on your own, which is always the best way.

[dirknb@hotmail.com]

The Cold War was just another Establishment scam. Another form of divide and conquer. The money for the Bolshevik Revolution came directly from Wall Street. The owners of the Fed own the Russian central bank as well. Communism is controlled by the Elite.

[Lovecraftian4Paul]

I think the USSR would've had a difficult time inflaming fears in their own public with someone like Ron Paul as President. Imagine: we're not intervening in any country, to "fight communism." That means no evil imperialist USA seeking to dominate the world echoed again and again in communist propaganda.

It also means fewer arenas for communists themselves to intervene and try to conquer. Imagine a Ron Paul letting the Cuban Revolution get rid Batista without condemning and alienating them. Castro seems like an opportunist more than anything else, he may well not put on communist clothes and allied with the Soviets if Kennedy hadn't tried to overthrow him. Or imagine the Vietnam war ending with French withdrawal. No American involvement. Vietnam, a historical rival of China and surrounding nations, may well have went down a nationalist path toward unity instead of a radical communist path. Heck, go even further back then that, and speculate what might have happened if we hadn't intervened in China during the Boxer Rebellion and supported Chiang Kai-shek. We might not have gotten a communist mainland China at all.

It's very difficult to know what would have happened in any of these instances. However, a strong case can be made in virtually every one for the benefits of a humble foreign policy. Communism was definitely an inherently flawed system, since Soviet socialism was both interventionist and economically unsound. They would have probably stumbled sooner and met their demise if we had kept ourselves away from head-to-head confrontations with the Reds.

[ChickenHawk]

The problem with non-interventionism is that you have to have faith that your enemies will not be aggressive if you aren't. In many cases that may work out, but if it doesn't you may find yourself surrounded and in an unwinnable situation. I believe that this potential down side is why non-interventionism has never been popular.