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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!ism780!jim
From: jim@ism780.UUCP (Jim Balter)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re(2): Martin Taylor
Message-ID: <29@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Sep-83 06:07:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.29
Posted: Wed Sep  7 06:07:00 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Sep-83 06:24:06 EDT
Lines: 50

So what the f*ck would you have done?  Bombed the Soviets into the stone
age to make them less barbaric?  Or spent 10 times as much of our GNP on
building bombs?  If we had a billion more nuclear weapons than we do now,
would the Soviets be any less barbaric?  You cannot "dominate (contain)"
the Soviet Union in a nuclear world because you cannot use nuclear weapons
to advantage.  Truman forced the Soviets to back down in Europe
and Kennedy forced them to back down in Cuba, Eisenhower forced the Chinese
to back down in Korea, and Nixon planned to force the North Vietnamese to
capitulate, all by threatening to drop nuclear weapons.  They couldn't
call our bluff because we weren't bluffing.  You cannot make an effective
nuclear threat unless you are really truly prepared to use them.  Under such
circumstances it was inevitable that the Soviets would seek to achieve
MAD capability; the Cuba missile crisis led to the removal of Khrushchev
and the subsequent massive buildup of their nuclear arsenal.
Now nuclear threats are suicidal, yet we have converted our front defensive
line in Europe away from convential weapons over to nuclear.

Personally, I think the only long-term way to survive with the Soviets is to
*assimilate* them.  Instead of barring travel between the two countries,
as the current administration is doing, we should be opening it up as much
as possible.  Provide the American people with as much information about
Russian culture as possible (we won't turn Commie any more than school
children are turned gay), flood the Soviet mailboxes with pen-pal letters,
send more 11-year olds to Moscow, pretend we're friends, as we did with
China.  Start more joint scientific, exploratory, deep sea, etc. ventures;
let them buy their pipeline parts from us; get them beholden to us.
And support popular revolution instead of forcing them all into the
Soviet camp; we will never strip them of third world political support
with our current foreign policy.  And enter into serious arms negotiations,
with a willingness to give up something ("But we're Amuricuns!  Only sissies
give up anything!"  Right guys; let's keep that mature rational attitude
alive).  If you think the Soviets get trigger-happy with air-to-airs
when planes fly over their security installations, just wait and see
what they might do with ICBM's when we put nukes 6 minutes from Moscow.

The point is, the U.S.S.R is not going away; we won't starve them to death
and we won't conquer them.   So all this hawkish posturing and finger-pointing
is childish and to no avail.  You can shout that the Russians are bad guys
until you are blue in the face, but it won't make them any nicer, it won't
make us an more secure, and it won't build a safe world for your children.
It blinds you to the flaws in yourself and your own country, which should be
dealt with concurrently with developing a deeper understanding of the rest
of the people in the world in order to help you save your own ass.

Please avoid non-constructive drivel and ad hominem trash in your responses.
Sincerely,

Jim Balter (decvax!yale-co!ima!jim), Interactive Systems Corp

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