Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mprvaxa.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!mprvaxa!tbray From: tbray@mprvaxa.UUCP (Tim Bray) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: A question about the "Freeze" Message-ID: <491@mprvaxa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Mar-84 19:45:40 EST Article-I.D.: mprvaxa.491 Posted: Wed Mar 14 19:45:40 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 16-Mar-84 00:26:54 EST References: <520@psuvm.UUCP> Organization: Microtel Pacific Research, Burnaby BC Lines: 26 x <-- USENET insecticide Why the "zero option" died while the freeze looks good... The issue here is one of credibility. As one might have expected, the Russians denounced the zero option as an extremely unbalanced proposal, given the actual strategic nuclear balance in Europe and bearing in mind the non-US nuclear deterrent resources. That the Russians feel this way is no surprise. However, when large sections of the European political establishment started saying much the same thing people started to wonder. And when the arms-control and political-science experts started publishing stories supporting some part of this position in everything to the left of National Review, the ball started rolling. But when you get right down to it, the problem is Reagan. Nobody believes that RR believes disarmament possible or is willing to do anything meaningful towards it. I mean, would YOU really negotiate disarmament with someone you believed was the centre of "an empire of evil"? And when you listen to the foreign-policy geeks in his administration start going on about limited nuclear war, the credibility of any disarmament option put forward by these people must be seen as questionable. Tim Bray