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]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] DEFENSE DYNAMICS [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
(4/6/1989)
by Brant Gaede, Freeman 07656GAED, 4/5/89
Do you have the right to defend yourself against those who would
violate your rights--i.e., use physical force against your person
(and property)?
If you do, you have the right to defend yourself with something.
What? Whatever would be appropriate. If monsters popped out of the
ground to gobble up your children, you might have a few flame-
throwers handy.
I hope so.
As private citizens in this world we don't need flamethrowers and
H-bombs. Our armed forces do though, along with airplanes, missiles,
tanks, ships, warriors, etc., in order to protect our rights. Essen-
tially they serve the same function as our police. So do our intel-
ligence gathering and espionage agencies. (So does our foreign poli-
cy.) They are our agents who we control through our government and
law. They are just as much an expression of our right to self-defense
as the gun we may keep to thwart an intruder.
(This is an ideal model for a free society. Since ours is a
mixed-economy, there are all kinds of perversions, like the war on
drugs, which creates and subsidizes the worst kind of violence
and scum at the expense of our civil liberties.)
If we negotiate with those who would violate our rights (the
Soviets), it could only rightfully be done as a stratagem to allow us
time to gain an advantage. This is not, of course, the attitude of
the West, but of the Soviets. The democracies think disarmament is
the path to peace, as if the ability to effectively fight, deter and
protect were "provocative." But as World War II proved, the greatest
provocation is weakness: perceived, actual or both.
Disarmament movements in the West are basically led and nurtured
by leftists who are more sympathetic to the Soviet Union and its
ideology than an ideology which is representative of individualism
and capitalism, which they consider inherent in their own countries.
That is why they want us to burn down our houses with a possible
winter storm coming on--and throw our clothes on the flames.
It's very possible that right now the Soviet Union wants to
actually reduce its conventional forces in occupied Europe to a
significant extent--an extent that will eliminate its ability to
launch a tank attack on NATO forces on short notice. There are funny
things going on in the Soviet Union, but we have to assume the worst,
not the best. The worst is that the Soviets really have no such
intention and are trying to eviscerate NATO militarily to make a
successful war with the West more likely. Perhaps Gorbachev actually
wants to eviscerate NATO through negotiations and genuine withdrawals
and constriction of Warsaw Pact forces so the Soviet Union can more
effectively use its resources to complete an unbeatable strategic
threat to the United States based on offensive and defensive weapons
including civil defense.
If the Soviet Union threatened the United States with war, would
European NATO countries in Europe come to the aid of the US even if
they effectively could?
The point of all this is the importance of creating and maintain-
ing the ability to defend ourselves no matter what kind of horn the
Soviets toot. If they really don't want war with the West, let us
encourage them by making it an impractical proposition regardless.
Above all, we should not tempt them by making ourselves attractive
targets to a society based on looting, not production.
As our main antagonist it is important to recognize that the USSR
is at best a second-rate monkey-see, monkey-do country--with varia-
tions. It tries to imitate the industries of the West, but through
centralized planning. It has "democratic" elections, but no true
opposition. It even had its own Vietnam in Afghanistan, oblivious to
someone else's hard-learned--or was it?--lesson. I really don't think
the USSR is competent enough to start WW III, except out of accident
or chaos. It's too thoroughly ruled by bureaucrats for such a huge
undertaking.
A problem for the US in regards the USSR, however,is that one man,
Gorbachev, is accumulating more and more power. If he gets enough to
overwhelm the bureaucrats, he or his successor(s) may indeed become
able enough to take on a weakened West. The military might take
over (Beckmann) with the same result if the many ethnic groups of
the USSR threaten the State with actual chaos and political disinte-
gration or if the military resents or fears a diminution of its sta-
tus, size, mission, etc.
The USSR stifles individualism and creativity. It cannot conquer
and rule the West, it can only physically destroy it. The US,
aside from military strength and the will to use it if necessary, in
the defense of its freedoms, which would include civil defense and a
missile shield, should do everything to further enhance personal
freedoms and productivity. To make this happen is our personal res-
responsibility as its citizens. The USSR will soon enough disappear
as a world power and threat to our rights if we leave it to its fate
and never present ourselves as a tempting target. The Soviets would
have to acquire Western values to truly match the West, which would
completely vitiate Communist political power.
In the Arab-Muslim world of theocratic states, individual
initiative is even more discouraged than in the USSR. At least the
Soviets admire American technology and industry and try to
emulate them. These countries by and large live on their oil, primi-
tive agriculture and foreign aid. Condemned to a lifetime of prayer,
drudgery, boredom or war and envy of the West moving ever ahead in
technology and achievements, their citizens exist in horrible
totalitarian and feudal squalor. Terrorists can't build modern
jetliners, but they can blow them up. These loonies, armed with
missiles, H-bombs and God-knows-what, will be with us for some time
to come. For the most part they will be (and are) sponsored and
protected by specific countries: Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
How the US is to deal with this problem above and beyond setting
an example of what a truly free country is--leading the world by ex-
ample is grossly underrated--is a complicated and difficult question.
There is no point in being nice. Libya could be used as a convenient
model. Send in the Marines and take over. The problem with such
action is that there are sure to be unintended consequences. Funda-
mentalists, in reaction, might take over Egypt. Etc. A good general
principle is that the least you have to do to accomplish what must
be accomplished, in case you are wrong about what it is that really
needs to be accomplished, is the best way to go. Invading Libya now
might be better than taking on the whole bunch later on. But even
less might do the job, which is the vitiation of terrorism, which
must not be lost sight of.
What is clear is how much the West has been encouraging terrorism
by letting Syria, in particular, get away with it. Syria is almost
certainly responsible for the blowing up of flight 103. Its agents
had been previously captured in Europe with the kind of
sophisticated detonation device used. How has Syria paid?
How has the Soviet Union paid? Syria is all but its client state.
Iran is free to attempt the murder a US naval officer's wife in an
American city. What has the US done in retaliation? Doing nothing
means that engaging in terrorism is a no lose proposition for terror-
ist nations and encourages more of the same.
This is an interventionist foreign policy. If we intend to protect
ourselves it is the kind of foreign policy we'll have to use. If we
can tolerate all of Central America, including Mexico, going
Communist in the next ten or twenty years, then perhaps a case can be
made for a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Could we tolerate it if the ideology were Nazism?
Comments are more than welcome.
* * *
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