Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: notesfiles - hp internal release 1.2; site hp-pcd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!hp-pcd!courtney 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 Lines: 23 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