--- Richard Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Of course, for much of the Cold War there were two > European nations each > with enough tactical and strategic nukes to defend > Europe against a > Soviet attack. (The US stockpile was excessive for > this and any other > purpose [except, of course, for powering Orion > spaceships!]. It's > sometimes been argued that the real nuclear arms > race wasn't between > the US and USSR but between the USN and USAF...) > > Rich
I definitely disagree with this. Nuclear weapons theory is a long and brain-shatteringly difficult subject (game theory was largely invented to deal with it) but: 1. The USSR's arsenal was _larger_ than that of the US for long periods of the Cold War, so it wasn't just us 2. The reason for the size of the American arsenal was to guard against a counterforce strike by the USSR This is why more than a few arms control theorists argue that small forces are _more_ dangerous than large ones, because a small number of nuclear weapons might tempt your enemy into launching a first strike in the hope of destroying them all, or at least enough of them to make a second strike impossible. The gold standard for nuclear safety is secure second-strike capability, and the number of weapons necessary for that varies depending on the number of weapons targeted at you. Thus an arms race. Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
