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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of
Message-ID: <7800940@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jan-86 23:30:00 EST
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Posted: Tue Jan 28 23:30:00 1986
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Jan 28 23:30:00 1986


     [Radford Neal radford@calgary]
>Some may say that the command economy of the USSR can divert a larger 
>proportion of the GNP to arms than NATO countries can (without provoking
>adverse politcal reactions). Maybe, but several times more? I doubt it.

I believe it *is* several times more. GNP  estimates  don't  make
much  sense,  in  the  absence of a common market where prices of
goods would level off. But in *real* terms:  what  percentage  of
workers work in war plants; percentage of machine tools there, or
of energy, steel, transistors etc. - "several times" is certainly
true.

>I think it's more likely that there is no great conventional imbalance, or
>at least needn't be by the time the nuclear weapons are gone. 

I'll agree with the last  statement  (after  "or").  Conventional
weapons  are high-tech now, and the West has every opportunity to
outgrow the USSR.  In fact, the opportunity may  be  *better*  in
conventional weapons because the technology is so diversified. In
one field like ballistic missiles they can concentrate, steal our
data and outdo us. A broad technical spectrum is different.

It all depends on the way Western technology in general develops.
When it stagnates or slows down, they can narrow the gap, and, in
selected military fields, reverse it. When the West forges ahead,
a  society like the Soviet has no chance to compete.  So, unleash
technical innovation, let old industries die and new ones mushroom,
and you get the defence problem solved as a by-broduct.

		Jan Wasilewsky