On Nov 8, 2010, at 4:55 AM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:
Jon Louis Mann wrote:
...and judging by GDP figures, the USA is still fighting the Cold
War.
There never was a "Cold" War beginning with the Korean War WW III
was a global conflict against Communism in Latin America, The
Carribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, etc. In fact
the US has been in a state of war under other names for most of our
history. WW IV is called the war on terror, and is also global in
scope.
Jon Mann
No, the conflicts above mentioned justify the "War" term,
the "Cold" is necessary because there was no actual USA x CCCP
direct conflict, with americans and soviets killing each other
in great numbers.
Alberto Monteiro
Depends on your definition of "great numbers". There was extensive
Soviet involvement in the Vietnam War, including significant numbers
of Soviet pilots flying MiG-21's out of North Vietnam. Sort of like
USA flight crews operating VNAF aircraft in the early years of the
war, before we dropped the pretense and started flying under USAF
colors. Most of this wasn't much talked about until long after the
fall of Saigon.
(The US pilots, mostly Navy, had noticed a rather wide distribution of
pilot skill levels among the MiG pilots they engaged -- most were
relatively unskilled and were a threat mostly due to their large
numbers, but a few were clearly highly skilled and very experienced in
air combat maneuvers. There was a lot of speculation on this until it
was revealed much later that these were in fact USA/USSR dogfights.)
Heard from a flight instructor:
"The only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask, resulting in my
going out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of
torn and twisted metal."
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