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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: We need the arms race
Message-ID: <228@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jan-85 17:20:35 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.228
Posted: Sat Jan 12 17:20:35 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 04:20:52 EST
References: <734@loral.UUCP> <797@reed.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
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Xref: watmath net.flame:7667 net.politics:6822

> No one 'wins' the arms race, because our real enemy is FEAR. 
> Spending roughly 300 billion dollars a year (I don't know the exact
> number- could someone post it?) on the pentagon hurts our
> economy, too.  What are we fighting for?  To prove 'who's
> best' ?  To 'preserve freedom' ?  

Projected spending is 300 billion dollars per year.  The average over the
past two years comes out to something between 200 and 250 billion per year.
However, only about 10% of this was spent on nukes and missiles!  The rest
was for conventional defense.  Nukes are cheaper than other kinds of
defense.  With a nuke, You can kill someone for something between one and
one hundred dollars, depending on what kind of nuke you use.  If we had no
nukes, overall defense spending would probably be higher.

Nevertheless, I wish that nukes had never been invented.
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice." - Foghorn Leghorn