Would the USSR still be around if General Zia-ul-Haq hadn't come to power?

[phk]

Would the USSR still be around if General Zia-ul-Haq hadn't come to power in Pakistan during the 1980s?

[So the Heroes Fall]

No

[??????????]

It was doomed any time after January 20th 1980.

[bullmoose88]

It was doomed any time after January 20th 1980.

You mean January 20th, 1981.

[??????????]

It was doomed any time after January 20th 1980.

You mean January 20th, 1981.

Whoops.

[Gabu]

It was doomed any time after January 20th 1980.

You mean January 20th, 1981.

Whoops.

Aha, StatesRights' fondness of Carter finally emerges.

[??????????]

It was doomed any time after January 20th 1980.

You mean January 20th, 1981.

Whoops.

Aha, StatesRights' fondness of Carter finally emerges.

Real funny, now go back and rebuild the nation you just lost..hahaha

[Vasall des Midas]

It might be - as it might be if he had. The Cold War in the form we once knew would almost certainly be over no matter what happened in the 80s or late 70s.

[Nym90]

It might be - as it might be if he had. The Cold War in the form we once knew would almost certainly be over no matter what happened in the 80s or late 70s.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The Soviet Union was already on its way downward, so I voted no.

[ag]

It had about as much of an impact as the alignment of Venus on May 7, 1089 - pretty much none. I wouldn't seriously consider it among the top 2000 things that brought the Soviet Union down.

USSR was not brought down by the Afghan war, period (though the war would, probably, make it somewhat higher among the causes of the Soviet breakdown - still, far from the top 10).

[kashifsakhan]

i dont think the USSR would still be around, but i think Pakistan would have been more pro-USSR, and as a result may have not given the Mujahideen the help it did give in Afghanistan. nevertheless, i think the soviet economy would still have collapsed due to the arms race it had with America.

At best i guess the USSR would have survived till the mid-90's.

[ATFFL]

The only thing that could have saved the Soviet Union was the mind numbingly stupid proposals that some Democrats floated in the early 1980s as a response to what they saw as Reagan's war mongering.  Some of them called for the US cutting the military budget to extend credit to the Soviets to pay for a lot of their non-military spending. 

[So the Heroes Fall]

Had the Soviet Union survived in the form Gorbachev had took it near the end, it'd be way better off than most of the ex-republics are now. Russia was certainly more democratic right near the end of the Soviet Union than it is now, and some of the Central Asian republics are far worse off than the Soviet Union was at any point since Stalin (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan being quite obvious)

Freedom House scores agree with me here too.

[ag]

Had the Soviet Union survived in the form Gorbachev had took it near the end, it'd be way better off than most of the ex-republics are now. Russia was certainly more democratic right near the end of the Soviet Union than it is now, and some of the Central Asian republics are far worse off than the Soviet Union was at any point since Stalin (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan being quite obvious)

Freedom House scores agree with me here too.

You know the old Russian saying: "If the grandma had balls, she would have been the grandpa". There was a major reason why Soviet Union did not survive in the form Gorbachev had taken it: because he had taken it to disintegration.  In order to survive, any Soviet government had to be willing to kill people.  The moment Gorbachev expressed doubts about killing, it all collapsed.