Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld coined the phrase “unknown unknowns,” a snappier way to describe “unintended consequences.” Both refer to events that are unanticipated, unexpected and unpredictable. Beyond the arming of the Mujahidin with Stinger missiles in Afghanistan that ultimately drove out the Russians and led to a Taliban takeover, a more telling example of unintended consequences was the implosion of the Soviet Union.
Although some wrongly attribute the end of the Soviet Union to President Ronald Reagan’s attempt to spend the “evil empire” into oblivion by forcing an arms race capped by the Strategic Defense Initiative, derisively called “star wars,” the truth lies elsewhere. After a series of geriatric Soviet leaders finally expired, the youthful Mikhail Gorbachev won the top post realizing that the rot and decay of a (fatally) flawed political system demanded reform if the USSR were to survive as a superpower. Gorbachev, a dedicated communist, created “glasnost (openness)” and “perestroika (restructuring)” as cures for reducing the political sclerosis and cholesterol that threatened the health of Soviet Russia.
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