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From: tbray@mprvaxa
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Nuclear silliness II - (nf)
Message-ID: <408@mprvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Dec-83 13:20:17 EST
Article-I.D.: mprvaxa.408
Posted: Thu Dec  1 13:20:17 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 02:33:11 EST
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Organization: Microtel Pacific Research, Burnaby BC
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x <-- USENET insecticide
In a discussion of the issues surrounding nuclear disarmament,
Peter Moore raises the issue of the protection of Western Europe.

I feel that the issue of Western Europe is completely divorced
from that of nuclear disarmament.  It seems self-evident to me
that the one thing the Soviets would NEVER do is invade Western
Europe.  Yes, I know that they have an adventurist track 
record in the Third World and no compunctions about maintaining
client states in Eastern Europe.

What would invading Western Europe (if the invasion succeeded)
win them?  A huge, sophisticated, used-to-democracy
population which would resist both above-ground and underground
every step of the way.  The Soviets have enough trouble holding
down the broken-spirited populations of Eastern Europe, most of
whom have no experience of democracy.  They seem to average about
one invasion-requiring crisis per decade as it is.

What would the invasion cost them?  Even if the alarmists are
right about the Soviet advantage in conventional forces, It is
just silly to argue that a conventional war for Western Europe
would be anything but a bloody, prohibitively expensive mess
for the Soviets.  

While there may be some reasonable arguments for the presence
of a few - say 1/1000th of the current count - of nuclear
weapons in the hands of the superpowers, preventing a Soviet
invasion of Western Europe is not one of them.  

Does that mean that all that US money and political capital being
spent on intermediate range weapons in Europe is being wasted?
Yep.  The defense contractors love it, though, so the National
Conservative Political Action Committee does too, so the Republican
Party has to, I guess...
	Tim Bray	...decvax!microsoft!ubc-vision!mprvaxa!tbray