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From: courtney@hp-pcd.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: re: Cruise Missiles
Message-ID: <17400041@hp-pcd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Feb-84 15:36:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hp-pcd.17400041
Posted: Sun Feb 12 15:36:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 08:55:18 EST
References: <1641@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Corvallis, OR
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Nf-ID: #R:rlgvax:-164100:hp-pcd:17400041:000:1173
Nf-From: hp-pcd!courtney    Feb  2 12:36:00 1984

The only way that I see that the Soviet government could "fall" is if it
loses the support of its populace to the degree that there is a revolution.

It is obvious that military force is NOT going to terminate the Soviet 
government (NUKE THEM???  INVADE THEM???  HA!!!).

Maybe we should go along and let them expand... after all, the Brittish
empire fell as a result of a central government spreading itself too thin.

So perhaps the long-term strategy is to continue to pressure their economy
(at everybodies expense, the "guns versus butter" opportunity cost that the
citizens of both the US and the USSR are victimized by) with stimulating
the arms race and draining the oil resources adjacent to the USSR which,
if conquered by the USSR, would give them too much economic power.

It seems that a plan of peaceful co-existence is the only viable long-term
solution to the current global predicament.  Nothing else, short of global
extermination, can be visualized as a positive alternative to the current
game of "Russian Roulett" that we play with the nuclear arms race (how long
will it be before some leader trips us into a nuclear catastrophe?).


Courtney Loomis