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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons...
Message-ID: <524@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jan-86 09:34:08 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.524
Posted: Wed Jan 29 09:34:08 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:38:54 EST
References: <1245@pucc-i> <915@whuxl.UUCP> <1908@brl-tgr.ARPA> <516@whuts.UUCP> <1263@pucc-i>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Michael Lewis writes:
> In article <516@whuts.UUCP>, orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
> >  
> > While the Warsaw Pact has an undoubted superiority in sheer quantity of
> > tanks, it is also true that NATO has 400,000 sophisticated high-technology
> > anti-tank weapons.  NATO also has an air force which is vastly superior
> > technologically as well as superior in terms of sheer quantity.
> 
>      Tim, you should read "World War 3: August, 1985" by former NATO commander
> General Bernard Rogers (among others).  Then you wouldn't be so quick to make
> quantitative statements that are blatantly wrong.  The Warsaw Pact outnumbers
> NATO "in terms of sheer quantity" in every area of conventional weaponry present
> in Central Europe (which is all that matters, given the nature of the Soviet
> plan), but, again, "in terms of sheer quantity", the Warsaw Pact outnumbers
> NATO in combat aircraft approximately 4:1.  The technological gap is closing.
> >  
 
Please cite your figures.  I have cited mine and specified for various
categories.  Simply to claim that "the Warsaw Pact outnumbers NATO in sheer
quantity in every area of conventional weaponry" without specifying the
types and technological capabilities of the weaponry involved tells us
nothing.  As I said before by such criteria you may as well argue that
the Indians were superior to the European settlers due to their 5000:1
advantage in quantity of arrows.
 
We can also note that August,1985 has come and gone with no World War 3.
I wonder what happened?
 
Besides the fact that Yugoslavia has survived for almost 40 years with no
Soviet invasion on an independent basis, Rumania also, a member of the
Warsaw Pact, refuses to allow *any* Soviet troops or weapons on its
territory and refuses to join in Warsaw Pact military maneuvers.
Indeed, as I posted in an earlier article the Rumanian government sponsored
a demonstration of thousands of people against *both* Soviet deployments
of new nuclear weapons and American deployments of Pershing II and Cruise
Missiles.  Quite a subservient ally,eh?
Then there is the matter of Austria from which the Soviets withdrew in
the 50's after  an agreement was signed guaranteeing Austrian neutrality
and pledging that Austria would join neither military alliance.
I wonder what happened to the Soviets horrible aggression and voracious
appetite for territory at all costs in the case of Austria?
 
I know nothing about Gen. Bernard Rogers, however I do know that it is
quite common for military officers to get so caught up in taking their
lessons of war and violence to heart that they lose judgment.
Like the famous refrain in Vietnam "we had to bomb that village in
order to save it" or like Gen. Graham, the Start Wars advocate, who
said that one could escape the worst impact of nuclear war by hiding 
behind a lilac bush.

On the other hand there are other *military* officers with more reason
who have come to question their past assumptions.  For example, Admiral
Rickover, "father of the nuclear navy",  testified to Congress that 
he had come to regret his part in continuing the nuclear arms race.
Another former NATO commander, who has *not* written any paranoid books,
has stated that he cannot understand why people keep talking about 
NATO's "inferiority" in conventional weapons or desparate need 
for more conventional weapons.  I will post that exact quote later.
 
Finally the *BEST* solution to the problem of conventional forces in
Europe is the same as the solution to the nuclear arms race - mutual
negotiated *reductions* on both sides to decrease the likelihood of war.
 
       tim sevener   whuxn!orb