By what point was the Soviet Union's fall inevitable?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

From the 70s at the very latest.

Reagan's rearmament nonsense may have accelerated the process, but it's doubtful this acceleration has been in any way a good thing for the countries in question.

People do forget rearmanent started under Carter.

Actually Carter was cutting back on defense spending. it was Reagan's increased pressure that cause the USSR to fail. There are still other communist nations out there (Even if you exclude China for adopting some capitalist principles) Had Reagan not pressured the USSR it would have lasted at least another decade, if not longer. You have to remember Gorbachev was willing to let the satellite countries go to save the USSR. 

I see you don't let facts confuse you.

Carter halted the defense cuts that happened under Nixon and Ford and oversaw a modest increase in defense spending. He likely would have increase it even more if the budget wasn't being whacked by high interest rates.  Probably the most ironic myth of Carter's defense cutting is the B-1 bomber.  He cut it because it was not much more survivable on the nuclear battle field than the B-52 would be and the still secret but under development stealth bomber technology looked to be a far more viable method of bombing the Soviet Union if need be.  But since it was secret, he didn't mention stealth technology as a reason for not building the B-1.  The B-1B that was ultimately built under Reagan was a substantially different (and improved) aircraft from the B-1A that Carter cancelled.  Even then, it only made sense because development times for the B-2 proved longer than hoped for.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obviously you can't read graphs at all.  If you could, you'd see that the low point was in 1976, even if one counts only direct DoD spending.  Granted, the increase was small, but that's because of the fiscal problems of the government as a whole which Carter faced instead of ignoring like Reagan did.  It's easy to increase spending on any government program if you don't worry about the deficit.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Obviously you can't read graphs at all.  If you could, you'd see that the low point was in 1976, even if one counts only direct DoD spending.  Granted, the increase was small, but that's because of the fiscal problems of the government as a whole which Carter faced instead of ignoring like Reagan did.  It's easy to increase spending on any government program if you don't worry about the deficit.

Actually I obviously can read graphs (but thanks for the insult, it's always nice to have a fair & unbiased moderator)

On the following link you can choose spending levels for different years:
http://www.davemanuel.com/us-government-spending.php

Defense/military 1976 $334,964,000,000 (inflation adjusted)
Defense/military 1980 $344,299,000,000 (inflation adjusted)

So if you look at defense spending under Carter it increased slightly while adjusted for inflation. This doesn't constitute a "rearmament under Carter". The military was in a pretty sorry shape when Reagan took over. If you need any evidence, just look at the hostage rescue attempt.

While it might not meet your definition of "rearmament" since sagging means going down I fail to see how it could possibly be considered "sagging" which is what you said it did, hence my statement that you were failing to read the graph correctly.  As for the hostage rescue attempt, it was the first major operation of the newly formed Delta Force and at least we didn't leave anyone behind to be executed as we did with three Marines in the Mayaguez incident five years earlier under Ford. While Operation Eagle Claw was a failure, what happened in the Iranian desert was an improvement over what happened at Koh Tang Island.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You're also missing the bigger point. Another one of your fellow liberals tried to say rearmament started under Carter. I simply pointed out that it didn't and that Carter had cut some programs. Can you really debate that I'm wrong?

First off, I'm not liberal, just ask any of the real liberals on this forum.  Second, unless one is just going to wastefully throw money at every anything (such as bringing the battleships out of mothballs as Reagan did) it takes time to ramp up new programs and systems and unless one pretends the government has an inexhaustible fisc one needs to cut useless or outdated programs to be able to fund new programs.  The prep work that went on under Carter is one reason why Reagan was able to ramp up defense spending as quickly as he did.

I would actually call eagle claw worse, because it failed before it really even got started, at least Mayaguez succeeded in it's mission. Assuming the Mayaguez incident was worse, it still doesn't get Carter off the hook for military unpreparedness, it actually makes it worse, as he should have seen the "failure" as a reason to rebuild the military.

Mayaguez was not in anyway a success, tho Ford certainly spun it as such at the time.  The people that we were trying to rescue weren't anywhere near the ship and were already in the process of being released.  The Khmer Rouge had announced that fact, just before the actual mission began, but we didn't believe them so we still went in, tho I won't fault anyone for that as the KR were not at all trustworthy.  However, the fact that we just barged in without verifying where those we were intending to rescue was just plain awful. If the KR had not already been in the process of releasing them, the crew of the Mayaguez very well might have ended up executed in addition to the Marines we left behind.

It was in response to our poor performance then as well as other incidents that were going on in the world that led to the formation of Delta Force during the Carter administration as part of his rebuilding the military to face the challenges of the post-Vietnam era. It would have been wonderful had Delta Force's first major mission been a success, but only in potboiler novels do special ops missions invariably succeed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Reagan re-instated programs that Carter cut, so those weren't "useless or outdated programs ".

Please go ahead and name some of these programs that Carter cut and Reagan restored. It would interesting to debate the merits of actual programs rather than vague assertions.  I've already pointed out why I think Carter made the right decision in cutting the B-1A bomber.  The B-1B Reagan authorized was such a different plane in both construction and mission that it would be a misnomer to call its authorization a restoration.  I already mentioned the wasteful recommissioning of the Iowa-class battleships. That only had one tangible benefit: http://youtu.be/BsKbwR7WXN4

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I believe he also cut development of the next generation fighter at the time.

Hardly.  The F-14 and F-15 were at the beginning of their operational careers then and the A-10, F-15C/D, and F-16 entered active service under Carter. The F-18 entered into development during Carter.  Possibly you may be thinking of the FB-111H which was put forth as an alternative to the B-1A which was also rejected by Carter, but that was hardly a next generation fighter.  Besides the only real improvement over the F-14 and F-15 that later fighters have is stealth technology and Carter backed stealth.  As you may recall, it was one reason why he axed the B-1A.  (The other was that it was not particularly better than the B-52.  Indeed, when the B-1B entered service later it wasn't B-52's it replaced but FB-111A's.)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Where do you get this stuff from?  The Tomahawk program was begun under Carter as was the Pershing II.  Granted, they didn't enter service until halfway thru Reagan's first term, but without the development work done under Carter, they couldn't have done that until Reagan's second term.  Modern military systems have long development cycles.

Carter cut the naval ship building program

Not really.  The most one can fault Carter for is that he continued to support the construction of the CVV medium-sized carriers authorized under Ford instead of additional Nimitz-class CVNs.  But it was Ford who initially cancelled the order for CVN-71 and replaced it with two CVVs at about the same cost. The only real fault with the CVV concept was the failure of XFV-12 V/STOL fighter to perform as expected. If it had worked, then those two CVVs would have been able to operate more fighter aircraft than a single CVN and by being two targets instead of one, they would have been more survivable.  But the failure of the XFV-12 would only become evident because of the development work undertaken during the Carter administration.  By 1980, it was clear that the XFV-12 was a failure and thus the CVV would not be a suitable alternative and Carter agreed to the funding of CVN-71 in his last budget.

But as for other ships, the Spruance-class destroyers came into commission under Carter, as did the first couple of Perry-class frigates with about half of the class being ordered under Carter, tho because of lead times and the fact that the Navy went slow with the first couple to make certain they got the bugs out before going into full production, the Perrys largely didn't go into commission until Reagan was in office.  Similarly, the Ticonderoga was ordered under Carter tho it wasn't until Reagan that they entered into service.  Both Los Angeles and Ohio class subs were being built under Carter, tho for the most part they did not enter service until Reagan was in office.

The Reagan naval buildup was due primarily not to increased construction of new ships but a refusal to decommission old ships and the symbolic decision to recommission the Iowas. (Except for having those phallic 16" guns, an additional Ticonderoga would have been much more capable and cost less over its lifetime than a recommissioned Iowa.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Everyone knows the military was in pretty poor shape when Reagan took office.

Often it's the things that everyone knows that are the most wrong.  Tho there is a measure of truth to it.  Reagan did improve the military over what he inherited from Carter, but Carter improved it over what he had inherited from Ford. The military ended up in an awful mess after Vietnam.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Rebuilding involves more than just money.  Conservatives tend too often to measure everything in dollars and cents.  Of course, money is nice too.  Carter's single term was a period of readjustment.  Rather than simply downsizing the bloated Vietnam-era defense establishment as Nixon and Ford had done, Carter began to get it prepared to face the new challenges our military would face and to do it without having an endless supply of draftees.  I can't say whether adjusting to the volunteer force was because of Carter, but that adjustment did happen under Carter as it took the generals and admirals some time to realize that the draft, which not only directly drafted people into the services but also encouraged "volunteering" to get a better spot than a draftee would, would not be coming back and adjust their personnel and recruiting policies accordingly.  There were problems as we transitioned to the all volunteer military, but it certainly turned out for the best.  Not that Carter was wholly against using the draft.  After all, it was Carter who ordered the resumption of registration for the draft in the event it was needed in a future war.