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From: afb@pucc-i (Michael Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons...
Message-ID: <1265@pucc-i>
Date: Thu, 30-Jan-86 10:49:20 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.1265
Posted: Thu Jan 30 10:49:20 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:45:34 EST
References: <1245@pucc-i> <915@whuxl.UUCP> <1908@brl-tgr.ARPA> <516@whuts.UUCP> <524@whuts.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 64
Summary: Thanks, I didn't know.  (and a comment or two)


     By the way, Tim, I'm going to find and read your reference.  It sounds
informative (although I think some of the same criticisms applied by you to
"WW 3: August 1985"  about bias could also be applied to this reference, which
would not necessarily detract from its usefulness; I guess "liberal" people
can have biased opinions just like "conservative" people...)

In article <524@whuts.UUCP>, orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) writes:
> 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, of course, there is the case of Hungary in 1956.  Oh, those zany,
fun-loving, peaceful Soviets.  And that party in Czechoslovakia in 1968.  What
a gas!!  Does General Jaruzalski (sp?) blow his nose without an OK from Moscow?
Hell, the Soviets up and *cancelled* some kind of high-level contact between
East and West Germany.  Of late, our peace-loving friends are on a little foray
into Afghanistan...

> I know nothing about Gen. Bernard Rogers...

     I was mistaken.  The book's author was General Sir John Hackett, and he
enlisted the aid of diplomats, economists, and others in order to piece 
together a conception of what the next war might be like, given certain 
conditions (one of them was that President Carter is reelected in 1980, which
may have had something to with Carter's being as impressed with it as he was...)
I might add that one of the points made in the book is that the Soviets plan
to make the Channel very quickly because they *have* to...the home situation
would deteriorate very rapidly if they became stalled for a significant period
of time.

> 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.

     An interesting, if irrelevant, point.

> Another former NATO commander, who has *not* written any paranoid books,

     President Carter did not think that this was a "paranoid book"...if you
were not so immersed in the "Reagan as scapegoat for the troubles of the 
world" syndrome, you would recognize that Carter, not Reagan, put a lot of 
things in motion which Reagan merely continued.

> 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

     I agree.  Unfortunately, the Soviets, who do not have to be concerned with
public opinion (except with respect to its manipulation toward their advantage,
which they are becoming ever more adept at) have been less than accomodating
in the less-publicized MBFR talks...