Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!amdcad!military
From: oravax!richard@wrath.cs.cornell.edu (Richard Alan Platek)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Future of the Military
Message-ID: <27498@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 26 Sep 89 08:21:20 GMT
Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM
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Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com



From: oravax!richard@wrath.cs.cornell.edu (Richard Alan Platek)

I find discussions about the withering away of military establishments
quite frightening.  It reminds me of pre World War I predictions that
a European war would be impossible because international trade bound
the nations closely together.  Periods of heightened awareness of just
how close war really is are just the periods in which wars don't
start; it's complacency and self-satisfaction which cause one to sleep-
walk.  Soviet society seems to be changing.  The economic situation,
on the other hand, is worsening to a degree that most Westerners can
not comprehend.  Where that leads who can say.  Communism can easily
be replaced by Great Russian chauvanism.  The bottom line is that
Russia dominates the Eurasian land mass, is  a superpower, and has shown
a greater competance in military affairs than in commercial affairs.
That's the threat; not Marxist ideology.  It's also sobering to recall
that China's nuclear capability is third largest in the world and that
the Chinese leadership have shown their criteria for violent response
is not quite ours.  As others have pointed out there does not appear
to be any reduction in Soviet military productivity despite announced
deployment reductions.  While there might be conscious plan to deceive 
the West it is more likely that there are many factors at work in
the Soviet politico-military sector some of which further Perestroika
and some of which hedge their bets.  In any case, as long as there are
Soviet nuclear ICBMs pointed at my home town I prefer to work on SDI.