mahoney@bach.DEC (Be verwy verwy quiet I am hunting wabbits) (10/16/85)
This is in response to the attacks on the Soviet Defense. I ask only that
people who call the size of the Soviet Army unreasonable and only another name
for offense think of the Russian situation.
One the Soviet Union is surrounded for the most part by enemy's (or
perceived enemy's).
> 1 billion Chinese
a) who blame the Russians for the loss of Mongolia
b) who feel the Russians stole Siberia (or most of it) from them.
c) who feel the Russians have undue influence in Southeast Asia
which should be their domain.
> You have the Germans on the otherside who invaded and killed over
20 million Soviet Citizens.
> France and England who have both invaded Russia and France has done
it twice.
> In the Soviet Union itself the Ukrainians fought along side the Germans
until the Germans started to abuse their people. Other nationalities
within the Russian Empire oops Soviet Union also did the same.
> Their so called allies are not much help to them since they are not
trusted by the Russians. With good reasons I could be wrong but from
what I have seen from History these nations not only would not be much
help in War many would turn on the Soviets. Who do you see East Germany
Fighting with The Russians or other Germans. How about the Poles who
have never seen the Russians as anything but barbarians. (rightfully
so since they have been under their domination for so long).
Now lets look at the US.
Up north we have Canada.
Down South we have Mexico.
The only real threat we have is Cuba and Nicraragua. No real threat in
my book and I hope not by anyone else.
I do not condone war or any other acts of violence but if you look at Russia
as a nation they have been invaded many times and it is only natural to feel
on the defensive. If someone kept punching you in the nose I am sure you
would build some kind of defense against that person it is the same thing for
the Russians.
So people don't get the wrong idea I am not a lover of the Soviet Union by
any means. I feel that any government that takes freedom away from its people
for whatever reason is an immoral government. Thus the Soviet Union as a
government has to be resisted but I can't not blame the Russian Government for
defending itself.
Brian Mahoney
"A purveyor of truth is often silenced"bottom@katadn.DEC (10/17/85)
There is another way to look at part of this problem. ie how much of the arms race have we brought on to ourselves? Why are the Soviets so paranoid? etc. It is apparant that they (the Soviets) are surrounded with enemies (see yesterday's posting by Brain Mahoney). Lets look at what we've done to encourage this attitude. In the Cuban missle crisis we threatened the Soviets with a nuclear war to get them to remove some missle sites from Cuba. Yet we continue to arm our allies as close to the Soviet border as possible. If the Soviet Union were to place two Nuclear task forces complete with Aircraft carriers (nukes included) subs (with missles) etc in the Gulf of Mexico I believe we would relive those tense days of the early sixties. Ie we would demand the removal of these ships. I submit that due to certain geographical facts (frozen seawater in most Soviet ports in the winter) that the Medditeranian Sea is the Soviet Union's gulf of Mexico. And a piss poor one at that. They have to get through the straits of Istanbul and then the Straits of Gibralter or the Suez canal in order to gain free access to the Atlantic Ocean. At any given time we have two task forces including two aircraft carriers in the Med. The offensive capacity of these ships is high they do carry nukes (forward deployment right?) each carrier depending on which class it is carries from 80-120 aircraft most of which have only one mission in a full scale nuke war go to Russia and drop bombs. Do not expect to return as your ship will probably be vapor. So have we encouraged their paranoid behavior? Yes. What can we do about it? I'm open for suggestions. Dave Bottom DEC Augusta Maine !dec-rhea!dec-katadn!bottom "DEC does not pay Dave to enter his opinions they are just his opinions"