The problem the US had with strategic parity with the USSR was with conventional forces in Europe and NATO. Why this happened is the United States used an enormous amount to manpower and materiel in Vietnam. The commitment to the Vietnam war involved thousands of aircraft. 2 million men and 500,000 at most times during the war, and close to an equal number of civil servants and contractors. The Vietnam War was a huge effort and in the end a boondoggle.
The US commitment to NATO declined with this shift. In the mid to late 70s the USSR had over 2 or nearly 3 times the conventional manpower NATO had. Though US technology was largely more advanced this numerical asymmetry was a problem. The deployment of the SU22 IRBMs was meant to block a fallback NATO had with nuclear weapons. They hoped to checkmate the west. The Pershing system was though not developed under Reagan, but Carter. In fact most of the mainstay weapons, such as the F-teen fighters etc, were Carter programs and if not dated to Nixon. Reagan merely presided over their deployment. The Pershing system though upped the nuclear ante. The game of power and brinksmanship with the USSR went up a notch. After reducing tensions with the SALT treaties, aspects of the cold war began to reemerge. In the end the Soviet economy was stretched too thin and the system began to reel. This was made apparent with Chernobyl, where the Soviet reactor system was an old fashion graphite system that was inherently dangerous. They blinked and the rest is history. LC On Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 4:05:38 AM UTC-6 [email protected] wrote: > On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 6:19 PM spudboy100 via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> *> I don't think we disagree much on the facts, merely that astronomers >> and physicists can get out of their depth as other lesser intellects do.* >> > Scientists are always out of their depth, that's why their dominant > emotion is confusion, and that's why it's a hard job, but at least they > know they're out of their depth. Scientists are usually right but never > certain; political and religious ideologues are always certain but seldom > right. > >> *> That Nuke Winter was an irrelevant addition to the anti-nuke argument,* >> > How is the extinction of the human race irrelevant? World War III will > either cause the extinction of human beings or it won't, the answer can be > found with the application of physics and no political ideology, left right > or center, will aid in finding that answer one bit. And to the defense > department, which controls thousands of H-bombs, the answer to such a > question might be rather important. > >> > *not that it was ridiculous, but that it was always one sided.* >> > One sided? There's a good side to human extinction? > >> * > Sagan seemed to think that surrendering was infinitely better than >> nuclear extinction.* >> > It was never a binary choice, but if it was then yes, surrendering would > be better than human extinction. What wouldn't be? > > > *Bart Weinstein agrees with your opinion that the physicists of both >> camps should have been praised for their weapons work, because it forced >> leaders to be rational actors. Interesting to note, that Hugh Everett the >> 3rd was himself a DoD physicist. I wonder if he believed that some of his >> world's died in a nuclear conflagration?* > > > Everett was disappointed at the poor reception his doctoral dissertation > received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the > rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making > computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the > pentagon about armageddon. But he was one of the first to point out that > any defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles would be > ineffectual and building an anti-ballistic missile system could not be > justified except for "political or psychological grounds". In his book "The > Many Worlds of Hugh Everett" Peter Byrne makes the case that Everett was > the first one to convince high military leaders through mathematics and no > nonsense non sentimental reasoning that a nuclear war could not be won, > "*after > an attack by either superpower on the other, the majority of the attacked > population that survived the initial blasts would be sterilized and > gradually succumb to leukemia. Livestock would die quickly and survivors > would be forced to rely on eating grains, potatoes and vegetables. > Unfortunately the produce would be seething with radioactive Strontium 90 > which seeps into human bone marrow and causes cance*r". Linus Pauling > credited Evertt by name and quoted from his pessimistic report in his > Nobel acceptance speech for receiving the 1962 Nobel Peace prize. > > Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most > of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the > probability of it happening was very high and would probably happen very > soon. Byrne speculates in a footnote that Everett may have privately used > anthropic reasoning and thought that the fact we live in a world where such > a war has not happened (at least not yet) was more confirmation that his > Many Worlds idea was right. Hugh's daughter Liz Everett killed herself a > few years after her father's death, in her suicide note she said "*Funeral > requests: I prefer no church stuff. Please burn me and DON'T FILE ME. > Please sprinkle me in some nice body of water or the garbage, maybe that > way I'll end up in the correct parallel universe to meet up with Daddy*". > > John K Clark >> >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c3296ca7-58ce-4a67-9f16-530d9feb66adn%40googlegroups.com.
