Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!ucbvax!ametek.UUCP!walton From: walton@ametek.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: (none) Message-ID: <12224235264.40.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Sun, 20-Jul-86 14:09:51 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12224235264.40.MCGREW Posted: Sun Jul 20 14:09:51 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 21-Jul-86 00:44:58 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 44 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu Return-Path: Date: Thu, 19 Jun 86 09:49:35 pdt From: Steve Walton To: cit-vax!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!COWAN, cit-vax!xx.lcs.mit.edu!arms-d Rich Cowan (cowan@xx.lcs.mit.edu) comments: Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect a double standard in the way you define the "falling" of a government. When talking about the governments of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, I suspect you mean the overthrow of socialism and/or the removal of these countries from the Soviet sphere of influence. When talking about the Phillipines and Haiti, you definitely mean the transfer of power without any change in social system or sphere of influence. The difference is crucial. My major point was that no change *of any kind* in the government of a totalitarian state has come about except by the application of external force. Pol Pot was overthrown by the Vietnamese invasion and replaced by another Communist regime. It is true that the result moved Cambodia from the Chinese to the Soviet sphere of influence, but the country is still Communist. I think we would all agree that any change in the leadership of a totalitarian country which was not the result of internal Communist Party decisions or of external force would be unprecedented, whether such change resulted from popular revolt, military coup, or replacement of one Communist Party by another. We did not send US tanks into the streets of Rome when Communist members were elected to the Italian Parliament; try to imagine members of the Capitalist Party being elected to the Supreme Soviet. What should US policy be? Should we stand firmly for the overthrow of all Communist regimes? Should we expand contacts with them as much as possible in the hope that exposure to external influence will eventually change their government? Do we implicitly endorse their form of government by carrying on trade and diplomatic relations? Should we enter into arms-control agreements, however imperfect, or attempt to bankrupt them by daring them to match our large defense budgets? Does our hostility actually strengthen them by giving them something with which to distract their citizens from internal problems? These are the fundamental questions of US-SU relations, and in order to answer them on a sound basis, we must harbor no illusions about the SU. -------