Reagan and Russia by Tom Reynolds
Yesterday, SCOPE wrote about how the Ukraine crisis parallels the events prior to World War 2 and highlighted the ineffective responses to Hitler that eventually led to WW2. The Biden administration is responding to the Ukraine invasion with sanctions but - what good are sanctions that don’t work? As 2nd Amendment defenders are well aware with gun control laws, the Left loves doing things that make them feel good, impose hardships on Americans, but have little or no effect.
It’s unfair to only highlight problems and then walk away; one should also offer a solution. In responding to Vladimir Putin, Biden might take a lesson from history on a strategy that did work. President Reagan brought down the Soviet Union / Russia without firing a shot. One major part of his successful plan involved fossil fuels.
Russia’s only big source of hard cash was and still is from its exports of fossil fuels: oil and natural gas. Has anyone bought a Russian made car or refrigerator? Hard cash from fossil fuel sales is needed to pay for Russia’s military adventures.
During Reagan’s non-shooting war on the USSR, he made permanent the deregulation of petroleum products and the windfall profits tax was reduced and eventually removed; these steps removed government disincentives and resulted in increased production. The Alaskan Prudhoe Bay Oil Field ramped up to, what was then, peak production in 1988. Reagan persuaded Saudi Arabia to open their taps and flood the market with oil, which they did in 1985. North Sea oil production increased greatly in the 1980’s.
The laws of supply-and-demand took over and as the supply increased the price of all oil dropped dramatically, cutting the revenue Russia got for its oil exports. In 1980, when Reagan was elected President, the world price of a barrel of crude oil was $35 ($110 in 2020 dollars). By late 1986 it was $10 ($24 in 2020 dollars). In six years, Russia’s real revenue from oil dropped by 80%! Basically, it was going bankrupt and could no longer attempt to compete militarily, or to sponsor client states like Cuba, and Russia’s always weak economy was a shambles.
As a side benefit, the price of gasoline plummeted and Americans reaped the benefits.
Then, the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991.
Russia has reemerged as an aggressor and threat to peace with its invasion of the Ukraine. Why not take a cue from Reagan and improve on current and proposed Russian sanctions by flooding the market with oil?
Why not? Well, because:
In June 2021, Biden claimed, “When I first was elected Vice President with President Obama, the military sat us down to let us know what the greatest threats facing America were…This is not a joke: you know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest threat facing America was? Global warming”.
There you have it; not Russia or China or Iran is our greatest threat. Instead, according to Biden, our military believes our biggest threat is Global Warming and Joe Biden has bought into it, hook, line and sinker. (One thing to remember, the top generals and admirals are the equivalent of political appointees and, unfortunately, the worst of them get to the top by being political. For example: generals during the Viet Nam War and General Milley with his enthusiasm for the Critical Race Theory instead of Afghan withdrawal planning.)
On Tuesday, Biden spokeswoman Jeb Psaki warned that, due to Biden’s sanctions, America’s high energy prices could be expected to go even higher, which is the opposite of what Reagan’s policies did.
Biden has shut down American pipeline construction. However, Biden waived sanctions on a Russian built pipeline in order to allow the Russians to finish it and market more of their oil. Apparently, Global warming only happens in the U.S.A.
Biden has stopped or delayed work on oil and gas leases so that he can decide how to proceed, after a judicial decision was made that he doesn’t like.
Biden ended America’s energy independence and often speaks of reducing or eliminating fossil fuels in America. (Raising oil prices is necessary in order to economically justify Green New Deal programs.)
Reversing Biden’s energy policies and adopting Reagan’s policies would be effective in bringing Putin to heel and, as a side benefit, lower the energy prices that are fueling inflation. But, as always, Biden continues to be on the wrong side of history.
A side benefit to reversing Biden’s fossil fuel policies would be in dealing with another partner in evil: Iran. Like Russia, Iran is dependent on oil for revenue. Iran’s leaders chant “Death to America”; they hate us. (Iran just returned 820,000 doses of Covid vaccine because it was manufactured in the USA.) Iran is also in the middle of economic and social crises: their mismanaged economy is in shambles and, because it is government controlled, there is no safe haven from mismanagement; their young people are becoming more and more disenchanted with the Iranian government as they seek a better, less repressive life.
In response to what could be the collapse of a government that hates us, Biden appears to be throwing the Iranian government a lifeline. He speaks of rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal, which would have positive financial benefits for Iran.
Biden and the Left will not admit that their soft-on-crime, bail reform, open border immigration, anti-gun policies might have anything to do with an increase in crime. But…they are on the defensive as their policies aren’t working and they face a critical off year election in November. Suddenly, they stopped being in favor of defunding the police and “Beto” O’Rourke says he no longer has plans to confiscate your guns.
If Biden wants to “reset” his policy and admit that, forty years later, Reagan still gets it right, it needs to be done now. (By the way, another thing that Reagan also got right was that he was also a defender of the 2nd Amendment.)
Of course, Biden can probably count on his partners in the left-wing media to adopt a policy of, “What Ukrainian crises? Nothing there worth reporting on”. (The New York Times once got a Pulitzer Prize for not reporting Stalin’s murderous policies in the Ukraine.)
