Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!bloomqui
From: bloomqui@uiucuxc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: PWhat if They Threw a War... - (nf)
Message-ID: <3891@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Nov-83 22:37:57 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3891
Posted: Wed Nov 16 22:37:57 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Nov-83 23:49:46 EST
Lines: 15

#R:uiucuxc:21200024:uiucuxc:21200025:000:942
uiucuxc!bloomqui    Nov 16 18:02:00 1983

The first thing that comes to mind, susan, is that a unilateral withdrawal and
destruction of U.S. nuclear weapons would leave our allies in europe and the 
far east effectively defenseless against Soviet nuclear blackmail.  No matter
how vocal the protest from Western Europe becomes, the plain fact is that 
without a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent our allies have no effective defense
against Soviet expansionism.  I believe that the Soviets, given their historical
fear of invasion from Western Europe and Japan and other strategic interests
(e.g. warm-water ports, positioning of *buffer* nations around the "Motherland")
would make life difficult for, if not outright invade, our allies.  The question
should not be whether we (the U.S.) should unilaterally disarm, but how might we
reduce the threat of a nuclear holocast without surrendering our fragilly 
maintained freedoms to an authoritarian-militaristic state such as the USSR.