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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons...
Message-ID: <915@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Jan-86 17:53:56 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.915
Posted: Thu Jan 23 17:53:56 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 22:44:24 EST
References: <1245@pucc-i>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 70

> 
>      The recent proposal by Mikhail Gorbachev for the abolition of nuclear
> weapons by the year 2000 is a revolutionary proposal, unlike anything the 
> Soviets have come up with before.  I'm sure there are a lot of knee-jerk anti-
> nuclear types who think this is a really great proposal which could make the
> world a much safer and saner place to live.  There are probably a lot of other
> people of other political persuasions out there who feel the same.  What people
> are neglecting to consider, however, is the near total dependance of the US
> on nuclear weapons to keep the Soviets out of Western Europe.
> 
>     For the last 30 years or so, the US has lacked the conventional forces to
> stop a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.  We have relied primarily on a 
> "nuclear trip-wire" strategy of massive retaliation to deter the Soviets from
> such an invasion.  The Warsaw Pact outnumbers NATO tremendously in every area
> of conventional weaponry, but nuclear weapons are the great equalizer.
> 
> 	  Michael Lewis @ Purdue University

We often hear that the Soviets greatly outnumber American forces in Europe.
This is true but it is the same kind of misleading statement as Reagan
and the Committee to Promote the Present Danger's cries that the US
"disarmed in the 70's" which was only true to the extent that we
agreed in arms control treaties to dismantle older weapons systems only
to replace them with more modern weapons systems.  Reagan, the Committee
for the Present Danger and the media in general neglect to mention that
the Soviets *also* disarmed and dismantled some of their nuclear weapons
systems to comply with arms control agreements.  Of course, they too,
simply replaced older nuclear weapons systems with newer and "better" ones.
This is the absurd logic of the nuclear arms race.
 
By the same token if one only takes Soviet Warsaw Pact forces and compares
them to American NATO forces one comes out with a great discrepecancy.
But such a comparison fails to even count the forces of Western Europe
itself which would most assuredly be involved in their own defense.
The number of troops from West Germany, England, France and the other
NATO members to NATO far outweigh the meager contributions of Eastern Europe
to the Warsaw Pact forces.  So that when one compares the total NATO
forces to the total Warsaw Pact forces they are roughly equivalent in
uniformed manpower, and NATO is superior in *reserve* manpower.
I will post some figures on this later.
 
There is a good reason for this: the Soviets do not exactly trust
her Warsaw Pact allies.  As Gabor Fencsik pointed out, Hungary's
forces deserted or turned against the Soviets in the blink of an 
eye in 1956.
Remember that simply *one* member of NATO (admittedly now split
in two but the fidelity of East Germany to the Warsaw Pact is questionable)
namely a united Germany, sliced through Russia like a hot knife through
butter, while also maintaining a front against England.  The armed
forces of England and France have both controlled empires stretching 
around the globe in the past.  The combination of these former colonial
powers with the US , half of Germany, and the rest of NATO certainly
constitutes the strongest alliance ever seen in history.  To pretend
otherwise is nonsense.
 
The Soviets' Warsaw Pact allies would do her about as much good as
Italy did for Hitler during WW II - precious little as they would
have zero morale.  On the other hand, they *do* serve a valuable
function as a buffer zone to the type of blitzkrieg invasion
staged by both Hitler and Napoleon.  The Soviets might wish it
were otherwise but this is the reality for them even if they
had the intention of invading Western Europe.
 
Now that nuclear weapons have become generally unpopular so that
mythical "bomber gaps" "missile gaps" and the like become less
successful in stirring support for the Pentagon and arms-makers,
the "conventional weapons gap" will now become the new rallying
cry for the military industrial complex.  Why even the "liberal"
Democrats agree with that!.....
           tim sevener   whuxn!orb