"SAIL LOCO" wrote

CAN YOU NAME THIS COUNTRY? .....

Jeeze, Sail, you forgot we'd just won the cold war when Slick Willy took
office. We'd been preparing for WW3 for 50 years, longer than most here
have lived. Two scenarios drove the arms race. One was mutual nuclear
destruction; the other assumed that both sides were deterred but that the
USSR attacked Europe sans nukes. Our plan (hope) was for US and German
troops to hold the 'Reds' back til we could mount a massive "sealift"
bringing enough troops to drive them back. Knowing this, the USSR built
submarines and aircraft to stop the sealift. Naturally, the USN built ships
to counter that threat ... and the beat went on, both sides diverting much
of their GNP to this race. Then the USSR went broke, crumbled, and the
threats supporting these scenarios blew away.

Nuc's and ICBMs are hidiously expensive to guard and maintain. Should Slick
& Co have continued to guard and maintain enough of them to destroy the USSR
100 time over, now that the USSR was gone? Would Ronnie Ray-Gun, the man who
won the cold war, have done so? I think not.

Any Idea how many schools and roads didn't get built, or harbors dredged, to
support a massive US presence in Europe - enough troops and materials to
hold off the USSR - or what it costs to keep a bird farm and supporting
ships at sea? Should Slick have kept on diverting US dollars after the
threat it had faced off for 50 years had disappeared, or should we bring
some home and use the savings to fix the Inland Waterways? What would you
do?

What Bush then Slick did was eliminate deadwood to afford the new hi-tech
stuff that let us utterly destroy the 4th strongest military in the world in
weeks, almost with impunity, whilst continuing to bitch slap the Taliban. I
think swapping some well-worn ships and equipment for UAVs armed with smart
missiles that a young lady at a console 200 mile away can put thru some
freak's bedroom window is a grand idea. If I was a dictator aspiring to get
some nukes that'd give me something to think about. Reagan almost killed
Kadafi with the crap he inherited from JFK; today he could have done it
without collateral damage, so it 'taint like we're worse off.