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From: mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars Defense Plan
Message-ID: <496@tty3b.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Sep-84 14:21:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: tty3b.496
Posted: Wed Sep 12 14:21:30 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Sep-84 07:03:54 EDT
References: <570@erix.UUCP>, <557@ttds.UUCP>
Organization: Teletype Corp., Skokie, Ill
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From: alf@ttds.UUCP (Thomas Sj|land)

   "The nuclear force is built up, not to be used aggresively, but to show the
   Soviets that any aggresive military action on their part directed against
   the western world, be it nuclear or non-nuclear, might lead to a mutually
   disastrous nuclear war ... This view, however paranoid or hysterical it
   may seem, has kept us outside a World War III for almost 40 years now."


Yes, we all understand MAD and flexible response.  The point is that forty
years is hardly a long time.  If you want to talk about four decades of relative
peace (in which use of nuclear weapons was threatened several times, by the way),
let's also talk about four millenia of history in which every weapon developed
has eventually been used.  I find little reassurance in such a brief span of
history.

    "The newspapers stated a few weeks ago that the Red Army would take over
    ALL of Western Europe (including Holland) in TWO WEEKS, if they wanted to ..."

I don't know what newspaper you speak of, but two responses: (1) why would they
WANT to? (2) it's far from clear that the East Bloc military is as over-
whelmingly superior as this would have us believe.

Your note also seems to assume that the only disarmament is unilateral Western
disarmament.  This is a straw man.  In the U.S., there is a broadly supported
proposal called the Nuclear Weapons Freeze (it routinely gets about 70% support
in public opinion polls).  The Freeze is quite simple: a verifiable
negotiated halt to further production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons
by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.   This puts us enormously ahead by stopping the
arms race in its tracks.  Then we can begin to tackle the immensely difficult
question of bilateral disarmament without the playing field shifting every few
years.

I think that unilateralism is unnecessary.  There is every indication that the
Soviets are willing to make concessions if they believe the NATO powers are
doing the same.

The problem, of course, is that the U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, refuses to
look at nuclear weapons talks as anything other than a public relations ploy to
garner support for the largest military build-up in history.  Because the Soviets
are so inept at press relations, he is even able to make  it look like it is
their fault that no negotiations are ongoing.   I personally believe that the
removal of Ronald Reagan from the Presidency is a necessary step towards any
significant reduction in the nuclear threat.

Mike Kelly