hu@sdcsvax.UUCP (T. C. Hu) (12/25/84)
Lately, I've been doing some reading on WWI, and a little fact caught my attention. In Barbara Tuchmann's (sp?) book, The Guns of August (Awesome book. I don't have it with me, and I haven't studied it too carefully, so you'll have to pardon my errors), she notes that there was a book published shortly before the war entitled The Great Illusion (or someting like that), which conclusively proved that war was impossible because of the intracacies of modern economics. This book was extremely popular among intellectuals in England, France, the U.S., etc. Everyone was happy to see that in their modern world, war wouldn't happen. Unfortunately, in Germany, someone (I forgot the name.) published a book (I forgot the title.) that proved conclusively that Germany had the moral obligation to start a war. This book was quite popular in Germany. We all know about the wars that followed. This bit of history bothers me. Nuclear Winter is an important theory that deserves a great deal more study. However, if we believe it, and the Soviets don't, or we don't, and the Soviets do, or we and the Soviets do, but some other nuclear capable country doesn't (I'm especially worried that Libya may soon become or already is nuclear capable.), we are all in for a mega-bum deal. In addition, the Soviet Union appears to be in a position similar to Germany before WWI or the U.S. before the Spanish- American War: It has completed industrialization and is emerging as the new world power; it needs resources to feed its growth; and, it wants to flex its muscles to assert its new importance. While Soviet scientists, like scientists everywhere, may be quick to latch on to the nuclear winter theory, Soviet military leaders, like military leaders everywhere, may be slow to follow. And that's what scares me. So, we may be ready to renounce nuclear weapons, but if anyone decides not to follow our lead, the whole world is in for some pain. --Alan J. Hu sdcsvax!hu P.S. If you want me to get all the sources spelled out right, send me mail. I'll try to find time to look up everything and post it.