[net.politics] Computers for the Soviet Union

zrm@mit-eddie.UUCP (Zigurd R. Mednieks) (02/07/84)

Ah! So we should end the most successful program we have to hobble the
Soviet military: we ought to end the ban on high tech transfers. That
would be stupid beyond belief.

The reason we should continuue and redouble our efforts to deny
technology to the Soviets is that it really does not matter if their
military gets all the 4k rams they want. What matters is that designers
and engineers do noot get to use jazzy cad-cam equipmment in college,
thereby making a whole generation of engineers less useful than they
might otherwise be. What matters is that their planners don't get to run
huge simlations of supply line systems on supercomputers. What matters
is that there is no widespread "compuuter literacy" in the SOviet Union
so that vast amounts of talent go to waste instead of into the war
machine.

The DoD had always been at the forefront of communications and personal
workstations becausee they know the value of a scientific community
that can easily communicate. There is no reason why we should hand the
Soviet Union such a situation on a silver platter.