Jes' a maybe dissenting political-economic thought or two.

Russia, no matter who was running the place--Czars, Bolsheviki, or whatever it is they've got now--has always felt a need to control what is now considered Poland. that's because there are no natural borders--invading is as easy as crossing from Kansas into Nebraska. And an army can go far over flat ground in the right kind of weather. a big, neutral Poland is okay--that's existed before (in fact, the Russians have helped *maintain* a big, neutral Poland in the past)--but having missiles in Poland *pointed at* Russia is probably too much for their institutional paranoia.

It's a lot like the nuclear missiles in Cuba back in 1962. The U.S. didn't mind (too much) having an enemy country just 90 miles from Miami (we did try to overthrow the government, though, you'll recall), but when somebody moved missiles in, we almost started a war over it. I kinda sympathize with the Russians.

I am inclined not to worry overmuch about the Russians using nukes. I think they got pretty thoroughly educated in the Mutually Assured Destruction stuff of the Cold War. Besides, with their oil and gas reserves, if they can learn capitalism fast enough, they'll control the economy of Europe anyway, whether anybody likes it or not, and they could have a lkot of fun with that.

Where I worry about nukes is some tinhorn idiot in (say) Iran, North Korea, or worse. A lot of them do not care, and some act like they have nothing to lose. The Muslim extremists are particularly scary because of the whole goin'-to-Heaven-fightin'-for-the-Lord mindset. They have no reason *not* to use nuclear weapons.

The Chinese do not need nuclear weapons, and I think they know it. They have *bodies*. They can (and probably do) breed and train soldiers the same way they do olympic gymnasts, and they are the primary reason Eisenhower and a few other generals always warned against getting into a land war in southeazst Asia. Remember the old proverb: "Somewhere in china, a womnan is giving birth every 20 seconds. And we have to stop her."

How about this for a scenario? The big war (tinhorn idiots aside) will be between China and India over who's going to get the resources in Russia. That will be a big, bloody but non-nuclear conflict. When the winner faces Russia, that's probably when it becomes nuclear. Russia doesn't have the population to defend itself and never has.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent.

joe

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