Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site eisx.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!spuxll!eisx!roy
From: roy@eisx.UUCP (Steve Rojak)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: RE: Reagan's joke
Message-ID: <803@eisx.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 15:46:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: eisx.803
Posted: Fri Oct 12 15:46:15 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 08:20:39 EDT
References: <1717@sdccs6.UUCP>, <479@tty3b.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Info. Sys. Labs, South Plainfield NJ
Lines: 61

(Sorry if you saw this, but I don't think it made it out)
The views I express here are not necessarily those of anyone but myself.

So the amateur strategists never say why the SU would want West Europe,
do they?  Ok, here is an amateur strategist (among other appelations).

Western Europe is an embarrasment to the SU.  There is always some
social incorrigible voting with his feet and trying to leave the SU or
East Europe.  He'll probably get shot or blown up but it's worth it.
How many people want to emigrate to the SU?

The presence of an open society so close to the SU is a continuous problem.
The Russians can't do whatever they want to because if they strect themselves
too thin, things get out of hand.  In 1980 they would have readily sent
the Red Army into Poland, but they were already in a logistical nightmare
supplying the forces in Afghanistan.  And understand, the Soviet concept
of supply is fuel and bullets.  Food the soldier can requisition off of 
the indigenous population, or do without.

The establishment of the West German economy in 48 was an embarrassment,
so the Soviets set up East Germany, and that was all she wrote for German
unification (but we knew that was coming; we didn't want a nation between
us and the SU playing balance of power games like GB did in the 18th and
19th centuries.  But when GB did its job, the powers weren't armed to the
teeth all the time.  Britain threw itself to the Entente before WWI, and
the peace of Europe could never be kept when Europe was divided into two
camps.  Britain paid the price with the erosion of her Empire).  If the
SU took over WG, do you think the latter would still be an industrial power?

By the same token, the last thing the SU would want is to take over the USA.
Hell, somebody has to provide the grain and the microchips.  Not that the
Soviet leadership explicitly care about the misfortunes of starving
workers, but thatthe workers are the basis for the wealth of the Soviet elite.
And right now, major military campaigns cannot be planned for the harvest
season, because the Army has to help bring it in.

Amid all the rhetoric, it gets lost that any power group, US govt, USSR govt,
Boy Scout Masters, etc., wants their power to expand.  You don't gain power
just so you can give it away to the dispossesed, who have not yet earned it
(and therefore don't deserve it!).  It is the stated aim of Communism to
engulf the world, and it sounds impressive at Party meetings, it just
doesn't happen to be doable.  But don't construe that to mean that the
SU has no territorial ambitions beyond its borders.

They just happen to have a few problems.  And anyway, they would rather
restrain themselves, than fall on their faces and lose their power.  Remember,
thats what the previous ruling class did to get them there.

I have rambled quite a bit here.  I am basically trying to make three points:
	-Why it is not in theinterest o fthe SU to overrun the US, as so much
		of middle America seems to believe,
	-Why the threat to West Europe is real
	-I also have hinted that, behind the sham of the US vs. USSR farce, both
		governments have played their roles very well
One should not be too quick to attribute to error what is equally explainable
by malice (sorry, Hanlon).
This am. strategist has shot off his tty.  Any others?

"You have to provide a good diversion for the peasants and livestock"
							-Dave Sim
	Steve Rojak, So Plainfield, NJ