Why was the demise of the USSR a bad thing for us?

[athon]

My girls have a debate for next week on this very topic. 'Why the breakup of the USSR was bad for the house (house being what we define it as, therefore could be Australia, since that's where we are, the west...whatever).

This is not my field. So, some ideas of why the decay of the Soviet Union was a bad thing?

Athon

[The Great Hairy One]

:eusa_eh: It was a bad thing? But we got happy, drinking Yeltsin!

Cheers,
TGHO

[Mashuna]

If I define 'house' as the football team I support, it was bad because the naive application of capitalism allowed a small group of people to buy up previously state owned monopolies of oil and steel. They then quickly became billionaires, and bought up Chelsea Football Club. Injection of capital allowed £250m to be spent on buying players, resulting in Chelsea winning the Premiership for the past two year.

In conclusion, Chelsea winning at football is the fault of Ronald Reagan, and that is why I hate America.

[TriangleMan]

Was the breakup of the USSR even preventable? In hindsight it appeared to be at a point economically where it would have been difficult for it to continue much longer.

So why was the breakup bad? It was bad for many Russians who fell into poverty combined with the lack of social services that they had been used to their whole lives. Couldn't tell you if the breakup could ever have been bad for Australia though.

[EvilSmurf]

Was the breakup of the USSR even preventable? In hindsight it appeared to be at a point economically where it would have been difficult for it to continue much longer.

So why was the breakup bad? It was bad for many Russians who fell into poverty combined with the lack of social services that they had been used to their whole lives. Couldn't tell you if the breakup could ever have been bad for Australia though.

Do the Aussies give much aid to the Former Soviet Republics? Or how about arguing that the Soviet breakup caused the USA to be the sole superpower in the world, and attribute some bad things to it?

[Mephisto]

Frankly, I think it was detrimental to the U.S. because it took away the big "boogie man" that conservatives here have been worried about for so long. Once the threat of the "red menace" was gone they turned loopy and began worrying about inconsequential non-issues like gay marriage, evolution, and freedom fries.

It seems as though they're also determined to return to the cold war era as Bush's new plan for putting missiles in eastern Europe has scraped the scab off relations between Putin and Bush and the Russians are outraged and suspicious of the move.

[ImaginalDisc]

The breakup of the USSR was very bad for people who enjoyws having two unprecedentedly powerful countries poised to annihilate all human life on the surface of the Earth

[Kaylee]

Is it in Austrailia's interest to have one "superpower" instead of two? I would argue that its better to have one "superpower" that is democratic than the previous situation where one was democratic and one coummunist and in a "cold war" with each other -- but your students may have a different opinion.

[Chaos]

There are two reasons I can think of why the demise of the USSR was a bad thing - not just strictly for the West:

1. The proliferation of ex-Soviet weapons and military equipment and the - so far - theoretical possibility of proliferation of Ex-Soviet WMD, now that central control over said materiel has largely collapsed.

2. The proliferation of ex-Soviet military personnel (as mercenaries and worse), and especially the proliferation of ex-Soviet WMD-capable scientists and technical personnel, now that their employment prospects have largely collapsed.

[brodski]

There is the argument that the Cold War helped to prevent conflict in eth world, as most of the world belonged to one of two groups who where not prepared to actually go to war with each other (except on a limited scale using third parties), and would not go to war with their allies for fear of giving advantage to the other side.

According to this argument the end of eth cold war allowed other conflicts to spring up, including current islamist terrorism.

i don’t fully buy this argument myself, but its an interesting idea, and one which you could get a good debate out of.

[cbish]

This is an IIRC response so bare with me. 1) The collapse of the USSR set up a 'freer market' system that the former Soviet people had no experience with and were unprepared for. Consequently, the mob took over. 2) it dropped the price of gold because now the gold that was locked up in the USSR was freed up on the world market.

I could be wrong, though.

[athon]

Same good points here I can discuss with the girls. Thanks for the assistance, folks.

Athon

[Cello Man]

...So, some ideas of why the decay of the Soviet Union was a bad thing?...

It made creation of stock Bond villains much harder.

Sorry, I got nothin'.

[ZeeGerman]

We got 16 million more wellfare dependants and unemployed

Zee

[athon]

Hm, it's looking somewhat difficult to put a spin on the breakdown of the Soviet Union being a negative thing for the west.

I guess we could play nasty; the actual wording is that the house 'regrets' the breakdown of the USSR. I guess we could play semantics (which makes for a weaker argument).

Athon