trc (04/22/83)
CS. Werner: (Sorry I could not send this direct - I couldnt figure out how to send directly.) I wont attempt to address all of your arguments, but rather the more basic ones. As I see it, your main points were: 1) The US is not good enough to act as world policeman. 2) Building up strength would lead to nuclear war more certainly than a freeze or unilateral disarmament. 3) My argument of using strength judiciously would not work today. 4) We should "play fair" with the Soviets. 5) Our country is already to weakened internally by military buildup to extend itself further. 6) The solution to a Russian invasion after we uni-laterally disarm is passive resistance. 7) Russia might fall apart if there were no US to hype against. The US might fall apart if there were no USSR to hype against. 1) The US is not all goodness and light. But to a large extent, our corruption has occurred since WWII, and as a result of trying to fight dirty tactics used by Russia. Before that, when the US did something, it generally did it in a rather open manner. We might have eventually turned out to be poor policemen, corrupted by power. But even then, we would still never have been faced with the threat of nuclear war - a battle against a single corrupt world power would be a revolt, not a war. Nuclear weapons would be of little use in such a revolt. 2) A freeze keeps us in the current state - approximate parity. Unless we move away from that state, all the current tensions would remain. Russia is currently using these tensions to hold the West in abeyance while it uses conventional forces to slowly expand its power. A unilateral disarmament would not lead to nuclear war, but if we did it, the results would be equally bad - as I said, we would see all that we love murdered and destroyed. See point 6. 3) I dont think I ever said that we should judiciously use our nuclear weapons as a threat or directly, today. The time for telling the criminal "dont pick up that gun" or "put down your gun" is past. Now the gun is pointed at us, and would be fired if we ever tried to use ours. Our other choice is to put on a bullet proof vest as fast as possible. The criminal will probably do this too, but at least we will know that we cant be hurt as badly. Perhaps, once the shield is in place, a freeze or even unilateral disarmament would be possible, since the weapons would be of little use anyway. 4) What is fair? To let the Russians gain half the world while leaving the other half alone? Shouldnt we demand that Russia play fair too? I think that the Soviets have amply demonstrated that there are no rules they will play by, only constraints to be observed so long as it serves their purpose. And I think we HAVE played fair with Russia, for that matter. More than fair. 5) Our country is NOT being economically weakened by its military expenditures. The portion of our GNP spent on the military had fallen drastically, before Reagan's election. What is sapping our economy are the social programs that reward the unproductive while punishing the productive with high taxes. Far more is spent on these programs than on the military. And really, can you say that conditions in our country have improved since these were instated, beyond how they would have improved if they had not been done? I do not believe this. Cut out those programs, and restore the military budget to a reasonable proportion of our GNP, and we will be plenty strong. (Actually, consider how wonderful this country would be, if only we had never had to maintain more force than would be neccessary to keep other countries from starting nuclear development. Ah well, no point longing for something that never happened.) 6) This argument sounds like something Russia would love us to believe. Passive resistance in our own country would make no difference to them, so long as they could take the rest of the world. And once the rest of the world is securely theirs, they could simply take a policy of "Crush the spirit of the average resistor and kill the more vehement resistors". Passive resistance, such as worked in India, worked only because the British could be shamed. Unfortunately, the Russians are pragmatists - if it works, it is right, and not shameful. 7) Yes, I agree that the USSR would have a hard time oppressing its own people if it could not point to external dangers. And perhaps it would collapse a few decades after attaining world domination. The US would not collapse, since its people do not need external threats to agree to the need for the government. However, I do believe that a lot of the wrongful actions taken by the government today, in the name of security, would fall away, if there were no external threat. All in all, if you could convince the USSR to go away, the world would be much better off. I refuse to consider having the US go away just in the hopes that the USSR will collapse. The short term (lifetime) results are certain to be far worse than present conditions. And who can say what would rise out of the ashes of the Russian empire? Tom Craver houti!trc
soreff (04/23/83)
I, for one, would not be surprised to see the US fragment into two or more nations if the USSR was not providing an external opponent. There are some fairly strong regional stress at work in the US (see "The Nine Nations of North America" [sorry, no author] for details). I imagine that the Spanish speaking southern rim of the US might be as inclined to separatism as Quebec is in Canada, but its anyone's guess as to whether separation would actually occur. (excuse me, that should be stresses in line three) -Jeffrey Soreff (hplabs!soreff)