Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!brspyr1!miket
From: miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Soviet Access to Usenet
Summary: Raisa is better in bed than Nancy...
Message-ID: <5048@brspyr1.BRS.Com>
Date: 29 Nov 88 19:27:05 GMT
References: <7649@well.UUCP> <8081@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <17651@gatech.edu> <213@twwells.uucp>
Organization: BRS Info Technologies, Latham NY
Lines: 64

In article <213@twwells.uucp>, bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) writes:

> [...] ...if they [the USSR] had the
> resources, they'd use those resources to make *real* war on us.
> Denying them a little money (specifically, foreign exchange, which
> they can spend on acquiring our, more effective, resources) means
> denying them a little of those resources and thus lessens the
> likelyhood of their making *real* war on us.

Actually, the more resources they have, the less unstable and paranoid they
are, and the likelihood of a war DEcreases.  This also applies, in greater or 
lesser intensity, to all the world's sovereign nations.  Nearly all wars are
launched under circumstances in which one or more groups perceive (correctly or
incorrectly) that their interests are in grave danger, rather than simply
because they're big and powerful and want to become bigger and more powerful.
 
> : Whether you think the Soviets are people or just gruff bears, you
> : still don't want to corner them and give them nothing to loose.

> This is an old argument, which doesn't hold much water when one
> considers that the Soviets have chosen their paths because they want
> to run the world. (Their stated intention.)

Yeah, right.  Read any foreign policy speech by any US president in the last 40
years and from a non-USA point of view it will seem like the USA's stated
intention is the run the world.  And we DID essentially run it from about 1945
until the late 1960s.  The Soviets simply want to prevent that from happening
again; their intention the "run the world" is simply an attempt to prevent the
USA from "running the world."  Of course their perception is grossly
incorrect, but that's their point of view and we're not about to change it.
Note that the USA has a higher percentage of its war machine stationed in
foreign countires than the USSR does, and US troops are located in more foreign
countries than Soviet troops are.  From THEIR point of view, it's the USA
that's in danger of taking over much of the earth's surface.  The Soviets are 
not concerned with the fundamental differences between US troops in South 
Korea and Soviet troops in, say, East Germany. 

> Can you say Afghanistan?  And do you have the vaguest idea why they are 
> pulling out? Try economics.

I love simplistic, one-word answers to complex problems.  There's a lot more to
the Soviet pullout than economics.  For one thing, the Defense Ministry has
been pleading for a pullout for years, citing the heavy losses to men and
equipment, not to mention the fact that the Afghanistan War has accelerated the
long-expected internal problems in the Soviet Armed Forces with regard to
Russian commanders and non-Russian troops.  There are many other reasons for
the Soviet pullout as well.

And you have completely misinterpreted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Suppose a bloody civil war broke out in Mexico, and after years of devastation,
anti-US forces started getting the upper hand.  Suppose the US embassy in
Mexico City was burned to the ground and US diplomatic personnel butchered and
their heads paraded around the city on poles.  Suppose the CIA began announcing
that much of the success of the anti-US forces was due to heavy covert Soviet
involvement.  Suppose the anti-US forces began making statements about taking
their fight across the border into Texas.  You may safely assume that US policy
makers would argue strongly, and probably successfully, for a US invasion of 
Mexico.
  
-- 
NSA food:  Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, DIA & NRO.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110  (518) 783-1161
"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson