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From: matt@brl-tgr.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons...
Message-ID: <1908@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 13:25:28 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1908
Posted: Fri Jan 24 13:25:28 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jan-86 04:53:01 EST
References: <1245@pucc-i> <915@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 60

> 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.  [TIM SEVENER]
. . .
> 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.   [TIM SEVENER]

A few questions for Mr. Sevener:

1.  When the Germans sliced through Russia (and France) in World War II,
    how did German manpower (active and reserve) compare with Soviet
    and French/British manpower?  Was it numerical superiority of men
    that won battles for the Germans, or numerical (and technical)
    superiority of weapons, mainly tanks?

2.  Does the Soviet Union (forget its Warsaw Pact allies) have more tanks
    in European Russia and the European socialist-bloc nations than NATO
    has in Europe?  Does the Soviet Union have more tanks in Europe than
    all the NATO countries, including the USA, have WORLDWIDE?  Is the
    Soviet numerical advantage in tanks slight, i.e., close to the 1:1
    ratio it takes to stop a NATO attack, or is it closer to the 4:1 ratio
    it takes to launch an attack on NATO?

3.  Do you think the USA tank production base, even if undamaged in a war,
    could do again what it did in World War II, viz., grind out enough
    tanks to ship to Europe in time to stop the threat from the East before
    it overran both Europe and the British Isles?


My reaction to "abolish all nuclear weapons" is:  Fine.  I don't want my
children to die in a nuclear war.  But recognize that this means a massive
conventional buildup in Europe.  Not massive enough to give NATO forces
the kind of advantage the Soviets have now.  But enough to give NATO a
1:1 force ratio in tanks, aircraft, artillery, and the troops to man them.
Such conventional parity is nothing that a truly peace-loving Soviet
leadership would have to fear (and I don't blame them for fearing an
eventual German thrust to the East).  But in order to create such a parity,
we'd have to raise taxes, AND cut social-spending giveaways, AND reinstitute
the draft.

Or is it better to see 350 million Western Europeans, with their industrial
capacity, move into the "socialist camp" where their Eastern European
brothers are?

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
					(matt@amsaa.ARPA)