In the end it really does all come down to money. The Soviet empire was a strange beast -as miserable as it might have been living in a subject nation, the truth was the Soviet Union was in their poor meager way actually subsidizing their client states. Thats a hell of way to run an empire. The reason the British Empire was the world's largest and for so long is because they understood how to make it pay. Circa 1960 when the balance sheet turned from black to red they were more than willing to let everyone leave. There was a funny true story about how on the 40th anniversary of the independence of Jamaica there was a poll done there on the subject "Would it have been better to have remained a colony". The majority response was yes. The real joke was even if there had been an election to that end in 1962 the Brits would still have left. Negative cash flow don't you know. I know most Republicans give Reagan the credit for killing the Evil Empire. He undoubtedly helped but its as simple as if you don't know how to make an empire pay you're not going to in the long run be able to hold on to it.