Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!brspyr1!miket
From: miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Russian access to usenet
Summary: national paranoia...
Keywords: paranoia or adaptation to reality
Message-ID: <5141@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Date: 15 Dec 88 17:36:57 GMT
References: <204@imspw6.UUCP>
Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY
Lines: 45

In article <204@imspw6.UUCP>, bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) writes:

> From: Anna Kochanowska: Visual Edge Software, St. Laurent, PQ

> >(Do you know that it is forbidden in USSR to make a picture of any post
> >office, bridge, railway station etc.? You may simply loose your camera
> >and have a lot of troubles.

> Do you know that the street signs on the Dutch-West-German border are all
> deliberately misleading, presumably to buy the dutch a few extra hours the
> next time Hitler or someone like him comes along?

> A very great deal of what we might see as paranoia on the Russians' part,
> they must see as a normal healthy adaptation to reality after 800 years of
> dealing with Subudai, Batui, Toqtamesh, Tamerlane, Charles of Sweden,
> Napolean, Hitler, etc. etc. etc.

Excellent point.  Who could blame them?  Invading Russia is almost a Planet
Earth tradition.  Don't forget that even the USA tried it once (end of WW1).

The Russians have traditionally adopted many techniques to hamper invaders.
Soviet railway gauge (the distance between the rails) is 5' 0", as opposed to
the semi-universal 4' 8.5".  This was a serious problem for the German invaders
in WW2; adapting locomotives/rolling stock/rail gauge ate up a LOT of German
resources that could have been better used for other purposes.  Supposedly the
Russians did not 'officially' adapt this gauge to hamper invaders, but there's
no doubt it helped them a lot in both World Wars.

Another handicap to would-be invaders of Russia is the dismal road system,
rumored to be intentionally kept in bad shape to keep invaders from moving
troops quickly.  Most contemporary WW2 German accounts of mechanized warfare
in the USSR are full of complaints about how few roads there were, and how 
nearly worthless the existing roads were.  A more 'normal' road system might 
have resulted in the fall of Moscow.  Supposedly the road system isn't much 
better even today.  An interesting mental exercise is to postulate a large
hostile mechanized force landing on a beach on the coastline of the USA today;
all other things being equal, our extravangant highway system would permit a
mechanized invader to cover massive amounts of territory with little effort
(please, no comments about how you and your friends would stop them with your
recreational firearms, CB radios, and pickup trucks!).
 
-- 
NSA food:  Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, DIA & NRO.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110  (518) 783-1161
"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson