ANTHRO@TRIUMFER.BITNET (02/04/90)
>>If you have a canon pointed at someone, and he has a rifle pointed at you, >>is his bullet less deadly? >It depends on where he's aiming the rifle. Or, more to the point, where I'm >aiming the cannon. If I'm aiming at his amunition stockpile (to keep stretching >the analogy), but he's aiming at my heart, is _my cannon_ less or more deadly? Presume you're both aiming it at each other's hearts. Are they not then equal in deadliness? >>Therefore, why do you need equal megatonage, not to mention MORE, when, as >>the Fench have noted, just a few hundred megatons with reliable delivery is >>enough make the Soviets or Americans with their tens of thousands of megatons >>think twice? >Have you ever heard the term "hardened silo"? Basically, it means that a near >miss (being within a couple of miles) isn't sufficient to destroy the silo and >contained missile. You pretty much need to be dead on. Most of the nuclear >level technology development has been aimed towards improving the targeting of >missiles so that they _will_ impact directly on the silo. Why would you want to knock out another's silos unless it's to make a first strike? Is it not enough of a deterent to target their cities? >>Sounds to me like you don't really want to disarm... you just don't >>want competition from someone who might be able to do something about >>your bullying of your southern neighbors. >Oh... I'm sorry. I guess that I just thought that all of Eastern Europe, not >to mention Afghanistan was bullying also. >Get this straight, we're _NOT_ the only bullys in the world. The world is a >rough place (although getting nicer). I never said the Soviets were not bullies, I just wanted to get you to admit that your own coutry is a bully, in which case you cannot, without being a hypocrite (a kind of cognitive dissonance) critisize the Soviets for invading Hungary, Chekoslovakia, and Afganistan on the basis of them being a bully nation. Dave