Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: frankt@uva.UUCP (Frank Tuijnman)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Short range missiles in Europe
Message-ID: <6741@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 May 89 03:17:15 GMT
References: <6679@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Faculteit Wiskunde & Informatica, Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: frankt@uva.UUCP (Frank Tuijnman)
In article <6679@cbnews.ATT.COM> esco@tank.uchicago.edu 
(ross paul weiner) writes:
> .....  The short
>range missiles in Europe now for NATO are 88 Lance missiles with a range of 
					   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>about 66 miles.  The plan is to replace them with weapons that would still have
>a range of less than the 300 nm limit set by the INF treaty.  That way in the
>event of war the weapons would not have to impact on West German soil.  It says
>something about the effectiveness of modern propaganda, a technological tool as
>much as anything discussed in this newsgroup (PSYOPS), that millions of Germans
>are demonstrating against an effort to replace very short range, old and rather
>more dangerous weapons with something better.
>-- 
>
>	Ross P. Weiner		Dandy Dirks Discount Disclaimers
>	esco@tank.uchicago.edu	 "You can't sue me, I'm broke!"

It also says something about the effectiveness of modern propaganda that
you believe that there are only 88 Lance missiles.
There about 700 Lance missiles (the 88 applies to the number of Lance
missile launchers).
Furthermore, the people in West Germany are not only concerned about
West German territory, but also about East German and Polish territory.
What they are protesting against is the idea to turn all of that in a
nuclear wasteland with those new `modern' missiles.
The last issue of the New York Review of Books (May 18) contains an
article on this subject, which is well worth reading.
The main point of the article is that the argument really
is over the trategy developed by General Rogers (former supreme allied
commander) to strike deep in Warsaw pact territory with tactical nuclear
weapons, and that the Lance missile has become the symbol of that argument.
To strike deep in Warsaw pact territory the intermediate range
missiles were needed, which is why Rogers opposed the INF treaty.
The new short range missiles with a range just under the INF limit are
much more a compensation for the removed intermediate range missiles then a
modernization of the short range missiles. This is why the Soviets think of
this `modernization' as violating the spirit of the INF treaty.
The West German Government believes that that such a compensation
is unnecessary now that Gorbachev is willing to accept a balance
in conventional forces.

			Frank Tuijnman (frankt@uva)
			Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
			Univesity of Amsterdam

[ mod.note: Let's try not to let the politics overwhelm this issue,
folks.  There's a lot of appropriate material here, but I can see the
potential for flamage.  - Bill ]