"Threads" (1984)

by radical jonny Mon Jan 07, 2008 19:35

I was about 17 when it came out, and it scared me to death. It was one of the defining films of my life, and probably did a lot to get me involved in politics.

Skimming through it now, what I remember most clearly was the awareness that sunk in that post-nuke, nothing was ever going to improve. How could it, really? This film really drives that fact home. Also, it drove home to me how little actual preparation could be done for the aftermath.

Sitting and thinking about it all these years later, I can't help but remember that all those nukes are still there... and they've built more... and "better" ones.

Said it then, and I'll say it again:

Disarm or die!

by Biker Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:26

I'm old enough to remember when the government circulated a booklet to every home in the state entitled "Bás Beatha" (Living Death) about what to do if there was a nuclear attack (presumably on the UK). Nowadays the government are happy to let all sorts of warmongers pass through our land.

by A10 Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:21

We are in Neutral Ireland and radiation respects borders.Are so the fukwitted thinking of both Govt and anti American peacemongers goes.
Actually there is a whole load of preparation that could be done to ensure the surviveability of ones self and country.The Swiss have done this for years,They can put 90 % of their pouplation underground within 24 hours.
However this takes two things which we have in short supply here in Ireland.Money,and an ability to stop expecting others to do things for us and get off our holes and do things for ourselves.
Why is it that in Ireland almost NO new houses have cellars???In Switzerland any new house must have a cellar that is built to a fallout shelter spec.You might never use it,but it is there if needed.
That would be like thinking though here.

by PaddyThePlasterer Tue Jan 08, 2008 20:11

Won't even install decent draught and noise insulation in houses and use the cheapest shite they can source so as to maximise their profits. Build a certified cellar in every house? You must be joking!.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust, all we'll get if we're lucky is an iodine tablet and a showing of the "duck and cover" video!

if you want to see it ahead of the posse, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

by Sceptic Tue Jan 08, 2008 20:34

“Threads” was a dangerous movie to show to impressionable young people as they become alarmed and become single tracked CND activists and the like. It is only fiction though. What Threads lacked was any explanation of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence during the cold war. It was successful in keeping the peace after all – the paradox being the more terrible the weapon the less likelihood of it being used and in the space of the military stand off diplomacy and trade and so on can take place. What is being lost here is the fact that an imagined nuclear attack on Sheffield was not the point. The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency.

For the west the task was to deter the USSR until that happened and to ensure in the worse case scenario that if the USSR attacked the west the west would bring the USSR down with it. As Patrick Henry exclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death” or as it was put more prosaically in the 1950s “better dead than red”.

The problem with people nowadays is that they have never known anything except unprecedented liberty and affluence and they take them absolutely for granted. They can and do stigmatise those who had difficult choices to make in defending a delicate western order in the volatile post war years.

by neutron Tue Jan 08, 2008 20:46

Chilling movie. But it, and the pacifism which motivated it, were a sideshow.

During the 70s and 80s the USSR faced with the stark fact that nuclear war was a guarantee of national suicide devised a military strategy in Europe which attempted to sidestep the reality of MAD. They built up their conventional forces - particularly armoured vehicles. Tanks are offensive rather than defensive weapons. They have little defensive use. The West faced a threat which in a conbventional war would surely overwhelm it. The Soviets knew that the liberal democracies could not match them in a conventional military build-up because such a build-up would depend on universal long-term military conscription. This was not a politically acceptable option in the West where young people had the right to vote and where universal conscription was on the way out. Mass conscription was no problem for the geriatric autocrats in the politiboro. The young people of Eastern Europe had no vote to express their opposition to wasting the best years of their life in the millitary. The Western Europeans thus found themselves facing mass conscript armies equipped with tens of thousands of tanks. The only option for the West was mass conscription of its young people and building thousands of tanks to match the armoured legions of the East, or to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to neutralize the threat. They chose the latter because there was no politically viable alternative. The Soviets then tried to neutralize this defensive weaponary by funding the so-called peace movement. The idea was to use the mainly well-meaning young people in the West to force their leaders to remove the nuclear weaponry which had neutralized the Soviet investment in its mass armies. Luckily the West, with the "Gipper" in the lead, refused to be intimidated. The Soviets then tried to match the West's theatre nukes with their SS20s and as a consequence bankrupted their ramshackle economies. The USSR disintegrated and the captive states of the East broke free from their shackles. Nuclear disarmament by the two superpowers had already begun as the USSR fell apart.

by T - 34 Tue Jan 08, 2008 22:11

"They built up their conventional forces - particularly armoured vehicles. Tanks are offensive rather than defensive weapons. They have little defensive use"

Nice sleight there. I guess offensives using tanks such as the encirclement of Stalingrad, the battle of Kursk, and Operation Bagration, were not then at the same time in one sense defensive, in that the Soviet Army was obviously not defending Soviet territory, using tanks.
No, clearly offensive weapons can be put to defensive use.
Hence the presence of Soviet tanks in Central Europe does not demonstrate agressive intent towards states in Western Europe.
After all is your point not that nuclear weapons - offensive weapons - were necessary to defend Western Europe, no?

by T - 34 Tue Jan 08, 2008 22:27

"The Soviets knew that the liberal democracies could not match them in a conventional military build-up because such a build-up would depend on universal long-term military conscription. This was not a politically acceptable option in the West where young people had the right to vote and where universal conscription was on the way out."

Conscription wasn't ended in many NATO states which ended it until into the 90s or later, if at all. Spain ended it around 2001. The Netherlands in the 90s, likewise France I think, but maybe wrong. Germany still has it. The "long term" Soviet conscription was for a two year period. All former conscripts are subject to call up in event of major war if of military age, so whether it is for nine months, one year or two years, it doesn't necessarily follow that longer conscription equals a more efficent military. Arguably it could indicate it takes an efficent army a shorter time to train recruits for a reserve. In any case there are military grounds for prefering volunteer, professional armies.

In short you will have to try harder if you want to convince people that a state which collapsed in 1991, and withdrew from supporting its satelite regimes in 1989, was, in 1984, when Threads was made, only 5 years before, poised to take on the whole of NATO, and possibly other allied states, in conventional battle, and would have done so, but for the nuclear arsenal.

by T - 34 Tue Jan 08, 2008 22:38

Which is it?

"During the 70s and 80s the USSR faced with the stark fact that nuclear war was a guarantee of national suicide devised a military strategy in Europe which attempted to sidestep the reality of MAD. They built up their conventional forces - particularly armoured vehicles."

or

"The idea was to use the mainly well-meaning young people in the West to force their leaders to remove the nuclear weaponry which had neutralized the Soviet investment in its mass armies."

Which is it? How come the fact nuclear weaponry would "neutralise the soviet investment in its mass armies" had not occured to the Soviet government, given that nuclear weapons with the capaicty to wipe out the Soviet Union (and the world) existed prior to this apparent conventiontal build up in the 70s and 80s?

Did they like suddenly realise this in 1985 or something like "oh shit we have gone and got all these tanks, we forgot the other side have atom bombs"!??!

Also if "long term" conscription is central to this military build up of the 70s and 80s, why did the Soviet Union reduce conscription from 3 years to 2 years in '67 or '68?

by T - 34 Tue Jan 08, 2008 22:47

"Luckily the West, with the "Gipper" in the lead, refused to be intimidated. The Soviets then tried to match the West's theatre nukes with their SS20s and as a consequence bankrupted their ramshackle economies."

The SS20 was deployed in 1975 - before or simultanous with the apparent Soviet conventional military build up, thus its deployment could not have been a response to the neutralisation of this conventional military build up. Certainly not a neutralisation headed up by President Reagan, given the fact that was five years before he was elected. It was also phased out by a treaty agreement before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

by T - 34 Tue Jan 08, 2008 23:37

"What is being lost here is the fact that an imagined nuclear attack on Sheffield was not the point. The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency."

I see the fact that most of human life came close to extermination on several occassions through the Cold War - including the missiles nearly flying once in the early 80s over an accident, is not the point. O.K.. Fair enough.

Moving on to the second point, the myth of Soviet expansionism, "those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations". Not true. Only twice post-45 were Soviet combat troops placed outside of what was given to Moscow at Yalta back when Moscow and Washington were buddies. Iran which they had jointly occupied with Britain during the Second World War and from whence they withdrew, and Afghanistan which was in the Soviet orbit prior to their invasion/occuption.
They pretty much never went out and invaded anywhere outside of their sphere of influence of the Second World War carve up of Europe. Afghanistan being a sole exception to that - but still one which was already in their 'zone'.

Furthermore given that any expansion of Soviet influence around the world outside of the 1939 - 1945 period came about as a result of movements indigenous to the area in question, and not the tramp of Russian jackboots, see for instance China in the 1950s, Cuba, etc..
it follows that if there was a Soviet expansionist intent, there would have been more support from Moscow to movements and states friendly to them than there was, and that support would have been for a more combative policy. For instance in the 1940s the Greek partisans were not supported by Moscow, and the Italian and French communists counseled to go into coalition governments and disarm. Had the Soviet Union been expansionist this would not have happened, there would have been an effort, via local communist parties - which were quite popular and armed at the time, to take over France and Italy, and support for the guerillas in Greece would not have been cut off as it was.

As it began, so it continued, Moscow aligned Communist Parties always took a moderate line, usually against their Guevarist and Maoist competitors.

Aside from the nuclear stand off, the "cold war" actions of Moscow were concerned with controlling the populations of their part of Europe, not expanding outside it, and often unreliable support for allied states in the Third World, while Washington's actions were mostly similar, only over a larger range, that is intervening against nationalist movements or revolutions in Latin America, and the Middle East, Far East, and other places where Washington moved in as the European empires decayed.

by staring at rats Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:25

Thank you "weary". You were right it is "unrelenting". I seem to remember it being serialised on telly when I was a kid, so sitting through the whole thing the other night was quite hardcore. Odd how almost everyone who regularly uses sites such as these would be on the subversive or potential subversive list of pre-strike detentions. The film begins with a naval incident in Iranian waters which seemed so apt considering the reported clashes of last weekend. One day later the things that stuck in my mind were the comically chilling inclusion of traffic wardens in the emergency police force & the first nuclear attack to effect Britian, which in the script comes quite a few single warhead exchanges down the line. That first attack is a bobm detonated in high altitude which sends an electromagnetic pulse across north western Europe taking out all communication systems. The wikipedia page on the flim thoughtfully links to another entry on EMP weapon development which indeed was one single tactical advantage the Soviets had over NATO since NATO's communication systems being more electronically more sophisticated were ironically more susceptible to such "side effects" of nuclear explosions - a fact which seriously worried western militaries for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse
A few days later now I find myself turning over the idea of how the post-war generation never got beyond "telegraphic sentances" & how quite obviously only slave based societies could survive which within one generation would have lost all previous knowledge due to that linguistic retardation & the illiteracy it means. I now remember a short guide I prepared (in potential subversive spirit I suppose) to what one ought provision in the eventuality of a nuclear strike, meaning what chemicals you need to loot from pharmacies & so forth which would probably be overlooked by others & would assist you make thyroid boosers, anti-rad medicine & later on water filtration systems. I still relish one piece of advice in that guide - "Find the control centre bunker & remember it is not in you or future humanity's interest that those within ever leave alive - thus ensure their stay is a long one & only when you're sure that dragon's lair is lifeless bother entering for the goodies perhaps by then you will no longer want"... things like cigarettes, shakespeare, bibles, uniforms with medals, maps & of course diamond encrusted crowns.

maybe more people will watch the whole thing :-
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-202379069842...en-GB

by Pu-Yu Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:50

There is little question that in a purely conventional war NATO would have been overwhelmed by the massed forces of the Warsaw Pact. In the mid 1980s the imbalance was three to one in tanks and two to one in military manpower.
Had the Soviets and their satelites decided to take the chance that the West would not dial up armageddon in response to a conventional invasion from the East, the West would have had two unsavoury options - magadeath, or slavery, Soviet style.

Instead it chose a third option. This was a limited or tactical nuclear defence against the invading Warsaw pact forces. NATO deployed the necessary nuclear forces. Whether or not a 'limited nuclear war is a myth, the reaction of the USSR bears witness to the tactical effectivness of the threat of limited nuclear retaliation. The ball was now thrown into the Warsaw Pact court and all those lovely tanks and armies which the East had bankrupted their economies to raise and maintain were suddenly obsolete in the face of the the Pershings.

The last throw of the Soviet dice - funding the 'peace' movement in an attempt to force the removal of the tactical deterrent failed. The democratic electorates saw through the game the Russians were playing. Ultimately the USSR imploded and freedom was restored to most of the nations of Eastern Europe.

This commentator was an Irish delegate to the IUS which was based in Prague in the early seventies. It portrayed itself as an independent students union which just co-incidentally happened to support the policies of the Soviet Union. Of course, when the Evil Empire fell and the archives were opened, it was revealed (surprise surprise) that the IUS was a wholly owned subsidiary of the KGB. Many of my fellow Irish delegates ( who would have screeched 'fascist' at anyone who questioned the bona fides of the IUS) now hold prominent positions in the TU movement and the Labour Party. They don't like to be reminded of their IUS days!

by wageslave Wed Jan 09, 2008 17:15

Banned for 25 years by the BBC!

the war game by peter watkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

by Sceptic Wed Jan 09, 2008 20:18

MAD was certainly controversial but at the time there was not much alternative except unilateral disarmament and that sort of pacifist tactic would not have worked against the hard men of the Kremlin. Gandhi could make headway against using these sorts of tactics against the British but they, unlike the Kremlin, had a conscience, had a domestic public opinion, a free press and a genuine opposition. At Yalta there was supposed, if I recall right, to be free elections in Poland, not an imposed communist regime as actually happened. The USSR turned their just fight against the Nazis into domination of eastern and central Europe – it was these things that set Truman and the US against them. Moreover they moved to crush popular uprisings in East Berlin in 1953; Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. You are right in saying they did not intervene everywhere they might have and they got out of a few places they had been but it would be news to the Afghans in 1979 that they were in the Soviet sphere.

by MADman Wed Jan 09, 2008 20:48

from adam curtis who gave us "century of the self"
pandoras box episode 2 "To the brink of eternity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%27s_Box_%28televis...es%29

by wireless head Wed Jan 09, 2008 21:17

we'll lose internet long before our kids are mutant illiterates & the crowns are dead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-hd8AWIyKs

by ex IUS Wed Jan 09, 2008 21:57

It is pretty amazing that the devices that produce these massive releases of energy can in their current incarnation be easily carried by two men.

As Fermi said "Questionable morality but wonderful physics".

by T - 34 Wed Jan 09, 2008 22:10

"The USSR turned their just fight against the Nazis into domination of eastern and central Europe – it was these things that set Truman and the US against them. Moreover they moved to crush popular uprisings in East Berlin in 1953; Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. You are right in saying they did not intervene everywhere they might have and they got out of a few places they had been but it would be news to the Afghans in 1979 that they were in the Soviet sphere."

At Yalta it was agreed, unsuprisingly really given that the place was occupied by the Red Army, that the government of Poland would be the Moscow aligned one, rather than the London aligned one - there being these two governments-in-exile during the Second World War. You don't really think anyone thought Stalin was going to hold free elections anywhere, let alone Poland.
East Berlin in 1953 etc... certainly proves the propensity of the Soviet government for tyranny, it however does not prove a propensity for expansionism along the lines of tanks massed at the fulda gap just waiting to drive forward into hapless Western Europe.

Europe was divided into two zones at Yalta and by the Second World War, there was no attempt by the Soviet Union to expand out of this - nor really for the United States to expand its zone. Note the abscence of support from Mosocw for the Greek partisans in the 1940s, or by Washington for the Hungarian rebels in 1956. Indeed the Soviet Union was also ostensibly willing to withdraw from Germany.

And as for this "it would be news to the Afghans in 1979 that they were in the Soviet sphere", well it sure wasn't news to the then Afghan regime given the fact they were asking for a Soviet military intervention (though obviously not for one which would overthrow them). Afghanistan was increasingly Soviet aligned each decade from 1919 onwards. There was loads of Soviet aid and advisors and so forth there, that is after all why the U.S. was supporting the Afghan rebels - before the entry of Soviet combat troops.

The three examples of Soviet military intervention you produce "East Berlin in 1953; Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968" all bear out my case, which is that the "Cold War" was, for the most part about the superpowers controlling their respective spheres of influence - e.g. U.S. interventions in Central America.

In short you have produced no evidence what so ever to back up a claim of post-1945 Soviet military expansionism, and you havn't addressed at all the point that Moscow usually counselled moderation among its international supporters, clients, and proxies, which it wouldn't of, if it was geared to taking over the 'Free World'.

On to Pu-Yu:

"There is little question that in a purely conventional war NATO would have been overwhelmed by the massed forces of the Warsaw Pact. In the mid 1980s the imbalance was three to one in tanks and two to one in military manpower."

Oh really? In 1984, five years before they withdrew from supporting the satelite regimes, seven years before the Soviet Union ended.
Ramshackle economy, inefficent, etc..., yet it could potentially do all that.

Moreover your statistics are meaningless. At Omdurman in 1898 the Mahdi had a 2 to 1 advantage over the British, the Allies a clear numerical superiority, except in the air, over Germany in France in 1940, yet the smaller parties thrashed the larger on both occassions (including incidentally an Allied air victory in France in 1940).

If you think the productive and technological capacity of the Soviet Union, a region of the world historically poor and underdeveloped, was such that its military was a massive efficient machine capable of brushing aside those of the richest and most technologically advanced states in the world, then I suggest you fill out a communist party of ireland membership form as you clearly have great belief in the organisational power of Soviet style "communism".

Furthermore your figures are meaningless as you ignore the fact that the Warsaw Pact shared not just a border with NATO, but also a very long border with a very hostile China. A China which, by your reckoning should actually by the world's number one superpower, as it surely has more men under arms than any other state in the world.

Again as pointed out above the mere existance of Soviet tanks does not prove expansionist intent. You havn't shown this, and you havn't argued against the case that the Soviet Union did not have expansionist intent (as shown by the fact it almost always pushed its international allies towards moderation).

"Whether or not a 'limited nuclear war is a myth, the reaction of the USSR bears witness to the tactical effectivness of the threat of limited nuclear retaliation. The ball was now thrown into the Warsaw Pact court and all those lovely tanks and armies which the East had bankrupted their economies to raise and maintain were suddenly obsolete in the face of the the Pershings."

Of course the major problem with this chronology is that, at least according to American military sources and Cold War planners the Soviet war plans never made for a purely conventional war, but for conventional forces plus battlefield, or tactical, use of nuclear weapons. As seen above for instance they introduced the SS 20 before, or at the same time, as this putative conventional military build up. Same is true of the Americans incidentally - the plans originally were for limited use, and tactical use, MAD came in later - in the 60s.

In addition you can't have both this 'forced into bankruptcy' scenario and 'all powerful evil empire' scenario - it is either one or the other. You can't say they could (would isn't even being addressed) sweep across the north european plain like a hot knife through butter, yet at the same time couldn't even pay for their existing peacetime military effort!

Finally on the European Peace Movement an important part of it - END (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Nuclear_Disarmament) worked on building dialogue between the dissidents of the west and of the east. It was of course internal dissent which played a major role in bringing down the Soviet empire.

by Weary Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:34

Check out this video

by Sceptic Thu Jan 10, 2008 14:25

FDR did think that Stalin would hold free elections in Poland; the Soviets did menace West Berlin on occasion and its military posture throughout the period was offensive. In the early days the loss of China was also seen as all of a piece with the expansion into Europe – ditto Korea and Vietnam and later the Soviet involvement in Ethiopia for instance. The latter in particular was a viciously bloody regime. Europe was not carved up at Yalta as such – the allied forces withdrew from the places they occupied once free elections were held to appoint new Governments and then people were free to live as they wished that is in the western manner. In the east people also wanted to live in the western manner but were prevented by the Kremlin with the support of their apologists in the west. Afghanistan was never in any Soviet sphere – they were a neighbour and a coup had installed a very weak pro soviet Government but that did no excuse a full scale military takeover – that was why it so controversial – Olympic boycotts et al. Nor was Central America a sphere of influence as such – the Soviets were present there too when they were able to exert their influence; ie in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua and Grenada. Moscow may have counselled moderation at times but it was an oppressive and tyrannical empire too. The western idea was to engage where possible but not to disarm unilaterally as Moscow’s lackeys in the west wanted. That would have been disastrous.

by T - 34 Fri Jan 11, 2008 01:55

"In the early days the loss of China was also seen as all of a piece with the expansion into Europe – ditto Korea and Vietnam and later the Soviet involvement in Ethiopia for instance."

I like the 'loss of China' turn of phrase, who lost it, where! In any case this is again woefully unrelated to reality...as I said above: "any expansion of Soviet influence around the world outside of the 1939 - 1945 period came about as a result of movements indigenous to the area in question, and not the tramp of Russian jackboots" Note also “the expansion into Europe” happened in 1944 and 1945 - when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were allies.

You cannot prove Soviet military expansionism by citing China, or Vietnam, being as neither country was invaded by the Russian military.
Moreover in the Chinese case there was minimal support for the Chinese Communists from Moscow prior to their accession to power.
Not sure but I seem to remember in the entire period Moscow actually gave more support to the KMT - that is the people the Chinese Communists were fighting. In any case that is neither here not there - the Soviet Union invaded none of those countries (with the exception of Korea, but that was during the Second World War and we are talking about post-45).

"FDR did think that Stalin would hold free elections in Poland"

Really he must have been as thick as two short planks then. What about Churchill - you reckon he would have put the words "Stalin" and "free elections" into the one sentence. The entire upper echelons of the British and American states thought Stalin was gonna hold free elections? Was Darby O'Gill gonna be in charge of the count? It is a wonder they didn’t invite the Soviet government in to conduct “free elections” in a few more places.

Oh and earlier you wrote:
“The USSR turned their just fight against the Nazis into domination of eastern and central Europe – it was these things that set Truman and the US against them.”

Given the fact what is probably Truman’s most famous statement was that when Russia was invaded in 1941 where he said something along the lines of we should support Russia when Germany is winning and support Germany when Russia is winning and that way kill as many as possible, and that the Soviet Union had previously been invaded by the United States, albeit on a small scale, I would suggest you review your analysis of Washington’s approach to the Soviet Union.

"Europe was not carved up at Yalta as such – the allied forces withdrew from the places they occupied once free elections were held to appoint new Governments and then people were free to live as they wished that is in the western manner."

Not true. There are still American military bases in Western Europe, in Germany, Italy, Britain, and probably other places too. Note also American intervention into the political life of Italy and Greece. Very doubtful if a Communist Party government could have been elected during the Cold War, after they were ejected from coalition governments, without occasioning intervention. In any case the issue is not the nature of the regimes, but lack of Soviet military expansionism post-1945.

"Afghanistan was never in any Soviet sphere – they were a neighbour and a coup had installed a very weak pro soviet Government but that did no excuse a full scale military takeover – that was why it so controversial – Olympic boycotts et al."

If a regime invites a power to intervene in its territory said regime can clearly be said to be within the sphere of influence of that power. Such a relationship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union predates the then regime and goes back decades. This doesn't "excuse a full scale military takeover" which is a non issue in this discussion, it does demonstrate that the Afghanistan intervention is an example of Soviet intervention within its sphere of influence and not Soviet military expansionism. That is a Cold War power policing its informal empire, as opposed to randomly invading this or that country.
On “that was why it so controversial – Olympic boycotts et al.” maybe you should become a little more y’know sceptical? Yeah actually overall that would be a good idea.

“Nor was Central America a sphere of influence as such – the Soviets were present there too when they were able to exert their influence; ie in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua and Grenada.”

Wow! Please provide a link to the Soviet invasions of Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada. I’m aware of several American invasions of Cuba and Nicaragua in the first half of the 20th century. Covert interventions in Cuba in the 1960s, and Nicaragua in the 1980s, and Chile in the 1970s. Plus an American invasion of Grenada.
Soviet military expansionism, that is something unlike this "any expansion of Soviet influence around the world outside of the 1939 - 1945 period came about as a result of movements indigenous to the area in question, and not the tramp of Russian jackboots". Soviet military expansionism in those places I have not heard of. So “when they were able to exert their influence” does not as you know well, prove a case for Soviet military expansionism of the ‘poised at the borders of West Germany ready to engulf us all’ kind as you know well.
In any case some links or references to the ‘Soviet presence’ in Chile, Grenada, and Nicaragua, would be appreciated.

“Moscow may have counselled moderation at times but it was an oppressive and tyrannical empire too.”

Irrelevant to the question under discussion. There is no necessary relationship between the form of internal regime and propensity to expansionism. For instance Britain was the state most given to ‘constitutional liberty’ in the 18th and 19th centauries, it also built an empire at that time spanning the globe.

“the Soviets did menace West Berlin on occasion and its military posture throughout the period was offensive”

Aha! The Berlin Blockade in 1948, the best you can do. As for “its military posture throughout the period was offensive” define what that means please.

In short before you adopt a blasé stance on the potential extermination of most human life on this planet, a potential nearly realised on a number of occasions, and almost by accident at least once, I would suggest some basic research and perhaps the adoption of a little more of a sceptical approach.

In any case the citing of China, Grenada et al, as examples of perfidious Soviet expansionism is a good starting point to looking at what the ’Cold War’ was actually about.

(1) The establishment by Moscow, during the Second World War and immediate aftermath, and with the agreement and toleration of the Western Allies, of a buffer zone between it and the West. A buffer zone it certainly imposed colonial exploitation on especially in the earlier decades. Given the fact that Russia had been invaded on three occasions from the west in the previous fifty years it would have been a little remiss not to take that opportunity. Rather than this being a staging post for some putative wild invasion of the rest of Europe, there is some evidence to suggest that Moscow was willing to withdraw from areas where it adjoined NATO - namely Germany, in favour of a neutral unified German state. As a quid pro quo Moscow did not interfere to the extent it could have with the parts of Europe occupied by the Western Allies. Note the abandonment of the Greek partisans, the Italian and French communists disarming and not making a serious bid for power - and you can be sure that was a line from Moscow.

(2) The expansion of American imperialism into the areas formerly dominated by European powers, and Japan. The Middle East, and Far East principally.

(3) Intervention by both states against opposition movements in their respective spheres of influence. As with Moscow in Hungary, or the United States in Vietnam, Grenada, and other such places you bizarrely list as examples of Soviet military expansionism.

(4) The functionality of superpower confrontation to American imperialism, for three reasons:
(i) A pretext for a massive subsidy to private industry - arms manufacture, which was important for research and development, and for spin off into the wider economy.
(ii) A pretext for ever widening foreign military interventions (traditionally quite unpopular in the United States).
(iii) Gaining a free hand in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the Soviet Union being the only power in 1945 which wasn’t either near bankrupt and indebt to the U.S., or occupied by the U.S.. Moreover due to particular idiosyncrasies the Soviet Union was attractive to many of the types likely to oppose the U.S. in what was to become the ‘Third World’.

by Weary Fri Jan 11, 2008 11:40

There was one school of thought which believed that the West should surrender to the Soviets because the price of living in totalitarian misery was preferable to certain death due to nuclear war.

Sounds insane or laughable today?

Certainly but for those of us who can remember the fear all of us lived under during the cold war that idea did not seem so.

If some Islamic lunatics get control of a nuclear armed state I would not be suprised if many people would actually contemplate converting to Islam rather than face doomsday.

by CorporateObama Fri Jan 11, 2008 13:31

Instead we opted for fake democracy, endless moneymaking wars and vapid dumbed down US global culture. At least the russians read books!!. Also they fed you and put a roof over your head. Public transport was ok too.

Mind you there would certainly have been an efficient rail network and public health services if the germans won WWII. What were we thinking!

by Weary Fri Jan 11, 2008 14:48

"Also they fed you and put a roof over your head"

If the communists had won the cold war it would have been the biggest cultural setback in human history since the dark ages.

by Sceptic Fri Jan 11, 2008 19:18

You have the wrong idea – I was giving some broad context about the background and rationale and scene for MAD - not getting into a ding-dong about each and every thing that happened over a forty-year period. “Who lost China” was a potent political cry in the US post ‘49 and contributed to the red scare atmosphere. It is quite legitimate to list it. The USSR had given considerable and decisive help to Mao and the Vietnam and China did to the Korean and Cambodian communists. Post ’75 the USSR did have military bases in Vietnam, which seems like military expansion to me. Re FDR what you are saying is that he was foolish to believe assurances he got from the Kremlin. I have never heard of that statement from Truman – let alone that it is his most famous one. I really won’t believe it unless you can reference it. The American bases in Europe post war were there by invitation to protect Europe from the Warsaw Pact. The countries themselves were no occupied of dominated by the US.

IF A REGIME INVITES A POWER TO INTERVENE IN ITS TERRITORY SAID REGIME CAN CLEARLY BE SAID TO BE WITHIN THE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE OF THAT POWER.
Not true and that’s not what a sphere of influence is. The intervention of Afghanistan was an enormous geopolitical shock in the south Asian and Gulf regions coming hard on the events in Iran. This was a new and radical breaking of ground, not cold war business as usual as you seem to think. You are parroting the Pravda line on it. Maybe it is you that should be more sceptical. Furthermore Latin America was not an agreed sphere – Moscow was in competition with the US for influence there and made heavy inroads in a few places.

As for the Berlin crisis you seem to think that amounted to nothing at all whereas in fact in fundamentally threatened the world order and an outbreak of terrible war.

by CorporateObama Fri Jan 11, 2008 19:30

oh i dunno...Personally I'd prefer watching the kirov perform some ballet, listening to some rachmaninov and reading some pushkin to seeing britneys gee, eating a "big mac GM" global warming fartburger and listening to the latest corporate gangsta mutha fucka (c)rap

But unfortunately the russians weren't expansionist as was pointed out. :(
My post was lamenting (somewhat tongue in cheek!) the fact that if the germans won WWII and then took over this country we would probably have public transport and an efficient health service. At some point after all the smoke clears and the atrocities subside, it becomes about logistics and management. In those departments we got the worst idiots going.

by history reader Sat Jan 12, 2008 02:09

Another thing if the Germans had won the war... no campsites for travelling people. They'd have been exterminated as untermenschen.

by history maker Sat Jan 12, 2008 10:53

18 year old "Wake89" likes to sleep, play video games, use youtube and watch sports. His favorite Football team is the Green Bay Packers, his favorite College football team is Nebraska, My favorite college basketball team is the Creighton Bluejays, his Favorite basketball team is the Utah Jazz, Andhis favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees. He likes telly too :- Around the Horn, PTI, The Simpsons, South Park, The Daily Show etc.,

He put a six pack of nuclear power plants on fire to see what would happen.

There is a moral here somewhere, even if the germans had won the war they would still have needed heavy water & you're all going off the thread. At the end of the movie "Threads" which this article is supposed to be about, the post nuclear war kiddies are put to work seperating yarns & wool & rope. You could think of it as either reverse engineering a jumper or be just like Iosaf & remember Dicken's urchins threading hemp.

by T - 34 Sat Jan 12, 2008 20:45

Sceptic writes: “You have the wrong idea – I was giving some broad context about the background and rationale and scene for MAD - not getting into a ding-dong about each and every thing that happened over a forty-year period.”

Sceptic wrote earlier:
“The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency.”

Thus “the task was to deter the USSR” based on the very real prospect of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, evidenced by the propensity of the Soviet Union for “invasions”. A danger which justifies the danger of nuclear extermination.

You are then asked to produce some, any, evidence of the Soviet Union invasions post -1945, outside of the areas occupied in the Second World War (that is during their alliance with Britain and the United States), and their broader ‘sphere of influence’. The examples you cite are mostly bizarre, best typified by Grenada, actually a country invaded by the United States! You havn’t produced any reference, link, or evidence, to the alleged ‘Soviet presence’ in Chile (scene of U.S. covert action), Nicaragua (scene of U.S. covert action), or Grenada.

“The USSR had given considerable and decisive help to Mao and the Vietnam and China did to the Korean and Cambodian communists.”

Even so, and reality in the case of relations between China and the Soviet Union is more complex - Moscow actually supported the KMT - Mao’s opponents, for a long time, this does not constitute an invasion. If it does, if it is military expansionism that requires a ‘nuclear deterrence’ to prevent, does it not follow that the same is true of American support for the KMT, which I would imagine was in excess of anything the Soviet Union supplied to Mao, actual real living breathing American combat troops in Korea and Vietnam, and Western support for the Khymer Rouge dominated Cambodian coalition post 1979, support for the Lol Nol dictatorship in that country pre-1975, and the massive bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia - in excess of the bombing of Japan and Germany during World War 2.

“Post ’75 the USSR did have military bases in Vietnam, which seems like military expansion to me.”

Was not an invasion. Moreover if it was, then surely some kinda of ‘nuclear deterrence’ is needed against the United States, being as they have bases in what sixty countries, more? And actually, though you seem to have forgotten, had tens of thousands of troops in that country, bombed the hell out of it, bankrolled one of its governments, and bankrolled the French colonial presence there in the 1950s.

So the final potential example of Soviet Union invasions you are left with is Afghanistan.
Of which you say, in response to me saying:
If a regime invites a power to intervene in its territory said regime can clearly be said to be within the sphere of influence of that power. That this is “Not true and that’s not what a sphere of influence is.”

On “Not true”

The Afghan government repeatedly requested the introduction of Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979.
(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan#...ntion)

Define “sphere of influence” and explain why it is not applicable in this situation.

Clearly the Afghan regime was aligned with Moscow. This alignment actually dated back decades, long before the then Afghan government. This is why American support for the Afghan rebels predates the Soviet invasion of the country by about six months at least.
(and of course that, by your standards, constitutes an American invasion of Afghanistan).

You say this “parroting the Pravda line on it”, actually it is parroting the line of Zbigniew Brzezinski, then U.S. National Security Advisor, who said: “Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”
(http://www.proxsa.org/resources/9-11/Brzezinski-980115-...w.htm)

Note “pro-Soviet regime in Kabul”.

In short you have not provided one single solitary example of the Soviet Union launching a post-1945 invasion of anywhere outside of interventions within its ‘sphere of influence’, or ‘informal empire’, or collection of ‘pro-Soviet regimes’, interventions aimed at indigenous opposition movements.

Therefore you have not managed to support with evidence your contention that:

“The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency.”
and “the task was to deter the USSR”, from invading Western Europe.

You havn’t at all addressed the counter-argument that the Soviet Union’s tended to push a line on its allies, proxies, and followers, of moderation - not in keeping with a supposed plan for world domination.

You hanv’t addressed at all the alternative reading of what made up the Cold War, that is in my last post.

In short you have made a wild unsubstantiated claim that the Soviet Union was poised to engulf Western Europe and had to be held off with nuclear weapons, a claim based on nothing more sceptical than the bog standard Western line on the Cold War, and you havn’t been able to produce any evidence to support this claim.

In addition:

“As for the Berlin crisis you seem to think that amounted to nothing at all whereas in fact in fundamentally threatened the world order and an outbreak of terrible war.”

It may have been a lot of things but it was not an invasion, and thus does not support your claim. I note you havn’t told us yet what “its military posture throughout the period was offensive” actually means.

“I have never heard of that statement from Truman – let alone that it is his most famous one. I really won’t believe it unless you can reference it.”

Harry Truman said: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word."

Here is the link to Time magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815031....html
which quotes him.

This was put forward in response to your claim that “The USSR turned their just fight against the Nazis into domination of eastern and central Europe – it was these things that set Truman and the US against them.”

I suspect you would have heard of this if you were in a position to authoritatively speak of Truman and the Soviet Union.

I notice also you havn’t responded to me pointing out that the United States had invaded, albeit on a small scale, the Soviet Union, decades previous to the Cold War.

Thus what you claim “set Truman and the US against them.” is a position you do not seem to be able to defend against two pieces of counter-evidence.

“Furthermore Latin America was not an agreed sphere – Moscow was in competition with the US for influence there and made heavy inroads in a few places.”

‘Competition’ for ‘influence’, does not constitute invasions, kindly demonstrate where these “heavy inroads” were, outside of Cuba post 1960.

“The American bases in Europe post war were there by invitation to protect Europe from the Warsaw Pact.”

Perhaps so. However you were claiming there was an American withdrawal from Europe. Clearly there wasn’t. BTW there was a ten year gap between the formation of the Warsaw pact and the ending of the Second World War.

“The countries themselves were no occupied of dominated by the US.”

No where on the scale of the relationship between central Europe and Moscow, nonetheless this is a bit naïve, I quote the well known Pravda journalist, Lyndon Johnson: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good..."

by Sceptic Sun Jan 13, 2008 16:52

You are hung up on “invasions” but the suggestion had never been that Moscow was invading loads of places but that it was oppressive within its own domain and its occupied territories and that it was hegemonistic elsewhere in the globe. In explaining how did it happen – how did we get to a position like that to which “Threads” was the background I was explaining the psychology and perceptions created by the USSR as to how this happened. I am discerning enough to realize that it was not a totally black and white picture, that there were valid criticisms to be made of certain western actions and that the hand of Moscow was not behind everything bad that happened though it was behind enough. You seem to want a detailed debate of the entire sweep of the 1945 to 1989 periods (if not earlier since you mention the White Russian campaigns) to prove your particular pro USSR and anti western thesis. The cold war and the military architecture behind it happened. NATO was founded to protect western Europe and Turkey by Governments in Europe of the late 1940s. These Governments like those of West Germany and the Netherlands and Norway and France and Turkey for example were not led by fools but by highly perceptive and intelligent people who were convinced enough about the Soviet actions and postures to found such an alliance. You seem to think that the western world was enveloped in a conspiracy spun by George Kenaan and Dulles based on an outrageously false reading of Soviet behaviour. This is nonsense and moreover there was not a symmetry of vice on both side. One block was democratic and free and the other was founded on fear and party dictatorship – this was why people sought to leave the east and go west and why their were pro western uprisings in each decade. This is the background to the position of the western ruling elites in the formative period and this position was maintained up until the 1980s.

To go to some detail but only by way of passing: Allende was a communist with pro Soviet leanings – after the coup one of his foremost allies Luis Corvalán Castillo arrived in Moscow in 1976 to the literally warm embrace of Brezhnev at Sheremetyevo where he then lived thereafter. In Greneda Bishop was a Castro glove puppet and little else – here the Moscow reach was via a surrogate. The Sandinistas in their 1980s incarnation were close Moscow allies. You protest too much about Afghanistan pre invasion – there was no “alignment” going back decades and there was no justification whatsoever for a full scale military takeover of the place by the Soviets. The invitation was just a sop to the optics. Back a coup though hardly anybody wanted a communist Afghanistan and then get the coup leaders to “invite” a full scale military takeover before the said coup leaders are swept away by events. This was a major extension of Soviet influence towards Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf. That is why it caused such a large scale consternation and why Zia almost broke with the US as the latter was perceived not to be taking the threat seriously enough.

by T - 34 Sun Jan 13, 2008 20:11

Sceptic’s latest claim: “You are hung up on “invasions” but the suggestion had never been that Moscow was invading loads of places but that it was oppressive within its own domain and its occupied territories and that it was hegemonistic elsewhere in the globe”

Sceptic’s original claim: “The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency. For the west the task was to deter the USSR until that happened and to ensure in the worse case scenario that if the USSR attacked the west the west would bring the USSR down with it.”

Which is it? How does the fact it “was oppressive within its own domain and its occupied territories” at all relate to the apparent need to deter a potential Soviet invasion of western Europe with the threat of nuclear holocaust?

You havn’t be able to prove your case on invasions, as you are unable to cite one example of a Soviet invasion outside of its sphere of influence, you are seemingly unable to produce a counter-argument to the claim that the Soviet Union pushed its allies in a moderate direction (unlike that which would be favoured by an expansionist power), and you havn’t even addressed the alternative view of the Cold War. Moreover you havn’t been able to support your claim that Truman and the U.S. turned against the Soviet Union because of the Soviet Union’s domination of central Europe.

“The cold war and the military architecture behind it happened. NATO was founded to protect western Europe and Turkey by Governments in Europe of the late 1940s. These Governments like those of West Germany and the Netherlands and Norway and France and Turkey for example were not led by fools but by highly perceptive and intelligent people who were convinced enough about the Soviet actions and postures to found such an alliance. You seem to think that the western world was enveloped in a conspiracy spun by George Kenaan and Dulles based on an outrageously false reading of Soviet behaviour.”

No I’m suggesting that if one wants to be “perceptive” and indeed “sceptical” one ought to be able to distinguish between the public presentation of a state’s actions and what was actually going on, we don’t after all think the Russian intervention into Hungary was against CIA supported fascist counter-revolutionaries, do we? See for instance weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Iraq and Bin Laden links. Oh my god! Governments lie! How cynical!!! Your argument here is basically well governments said so, and apparently acted on the basis of what they were saying, and are "highly perceptive and intelligent people", and you call yourself 'sceptic'? Of course the same logic could be applied to any government!

“One block was democratic and free and the other was founded on fear and party dictatorship”

Very sceptical.
Greece under the colonels - military dictatorship and NATO member.
Portugal fascist dictatorship and original member of NATO.
Turkey post-1980 military dictatorship and NATO member.

National Security States in Latin America, all closely aligned with the United States, all dictatorships, many murdered tens of thousands of their own citizens.
Including Brazil post-1964, Pinochet in Chile post-1973, Argentina under the junta, El Salvador and Guatemala, particularly during the 1980s.

Other examples of the ‘free world’ Chiang Kai-shek in China and later Taiwan, Mobutu in Zaire, the New Order in Indonesia - the later of course killed well over a million of its subjects. Add to the list the Shah of Iran, the House of Saud, and many more.

I hasten to add of course when NATO was set up founding members Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands were colonial powers and as such could hardly be considered “democratic and free” in anyones book - see for instance the massacres being carried out by the French authorities in Algeria and Madagascar at the very same time as NATO was being formed (tens of thousands killed).

Beside all that it seems very small to note that the upper echelons of Italian and West German society were formerly less than enamoured of things “democratic and free”. That is the prominent supporters of Hitler and Mussolini did not simply disapear, but more
often than not remained in the same positions they held under the previous regime.

“You protest too much about Afghanistan pre invasion – there was no “alignment” going back decades and there was no justification whatsoever for a full scale military takeover of the place by the Soviets.”

The issue of “no justification whatsoever for a full scale military takeover of the place by the Soviets” is a non-issue - no one is claiming that in this discussion and this the second time you have raised this, it is simply muck throwing, as for alignment between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union:

“In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan served as a strategic buffer state between czarist Russia and the British Empire in the subcontinent. Afghanistan's relations with Moscow became more cordial after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The Soviet Union was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan after the Third Anglo-Afghan war and signed an Afghan-Soviet nonaggression pact in 1921, which also provided for Afghan transit rights through the Soviet Union. Early Soviet assistance included financial aid, aircraft and attendant technical personnel, and telegraph operators.
The Soviets began a major economic assistance program in Afghanistan in the 1950s. Between 1954 and 1978, Afghanistan received more than $1 billion in Soviet aid, including substantial military assistance. In 1973, the two countries announced a $200-million assistance agreement on gas and oil development, trade, transport, irrigation, and factory construction.” From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Afgha...istan

Also for two years in the 70s - before the coup - every night Kabul airport received Soviet aid.

“The invitation was just a sop to the optics. Back a coup though hardly anybody wanted a communist Afghanistan and then get the coup leaders to “invite” a full scale military takeover before the said coup leaders are swept away by events.”

This is the invitation, which you claimed earlier didn’t exist, from the ‘pro-Soviet regime in Kabul’, which you also claimed earlier didn’t exist. The issue of a “communist Afghanistan” is a non-issue, there are strong grounds for thinking Moscow did not want a “communist Afghanistan”, and wasn’t necessarily too fond of the coup - they did after all get rid of the chap that led it as their first action after invading Afghanistan.

Finally your argument on Afghanistan revolves around the fact the Soviet intervention caused “large scale consternation” and “it so controversial – Olympic boycotts et al” one would expect someone operating under the moniker ‘sceptic’ to be a bit more sceptical, ie just cause Reagan, the Pakistani military dictatorship (another part of the “free and democratic” bloc?) and the House of Saud make a big song and dance about something doesn’t make it so.

If there was some class of Soviet master plan to take over Afghanistan via an invasion after a coup and invitation to provide pretext (ignoring the fact the Soviets took out the coup leaders) how come Zbigniew Brzezinski claims as a great victory the fact the American government he served in, as he sees it, suckered the Russians into Afghanistan?

Finally even if everything you say about Afghanistan is true, then how can an invasion in 1979 account for the necessity to defend Western Europe from Soviet aggression by means of a massive nuclear arsenal for decades prior to that on the basis “that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions” when you cannot identify a single solitary post-1945 Soviet invasion of anywhere outside of its sphere of influence/informal empire until almost the fifth decade of the Cold War! That is even if we grant that you are right about Afghanistan, even though you are now contradicting yourself on it.

“your particular pro USSR and anti western thesis”

More tiresome mud throwing. Anyone can scroll up and see me describe the Soviet Union as a “tyranny” which subjected central Europe to “colonial exploitation”.

“To go to some detail but only by way of passing: Allende was a communist with pro Soviet leanings – after the coup one of his foremost allies Luis Corvalán Castillo arrived in Moscow in 1976 to the literally warm embrace of Brezhnev at Sheremetyevo where he then lived thereafter. In Greneda Bishop was a Castro glove puppet and little else – here the Moscow reach was via a surrogate. The Sandinistas in their 1980s incarnation were close Moscow allies”

Sorry I asked you to detail the, in your words, the “soviet presence” which was making “heavy inroads” in Latin America. Detail the “soviet presence” please. Let us make this easy, perhaps you could name a Russian military base in any of those countries, or substantial Russian military aid, or well basically something Russian. That is pretty minimal really “something Russian”, you should be able to find “something Russian”.

Were any of these countries “those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions”, if not, are they examples relevant to your case?

Not sure what you mean by “Allende was a communist with pro Soviet leanings”, he was not a member of the communist party, and actually denounced Soviet policies in central Europe. If Chile under Allende was within the Soviet orbit, there was an actual “soviet presence” there, a “heavy inroad”, and Afghanistan prior to the coup wasn’t, perhaps you could detail the Soviet aid to Chile under his government, and show how it exceeds the aid to Afghanistan, or perhaps explain in some way how Chile had a “soviet presence”, but Afghanistan could be considered in no way whatsoever aligned to Moscow?

At the moment all you seem to have by way of “soviet presence” making “heavy inroads” in Latin America is the fact the Chilean sister party to the Labour party was in government, democratically elected I might add, and had as its junior partner the Chilean communist party, the leader of which moved to Russia as a refugee after an American supported coup d’etat established in Chile a brutal military dictatorship which tortured and murdered thousands.

I don’t think you are gonna get many people to agree with you that potential nuclear extermination was a price worth paying, necessary to hold off Soviet aggression, if that is your example of Soviet aggression! The commie bastards have accepted a refugee from Chile my God!! Better Dead than Red!!! Nuke ’em now!!!!

Remember you are trying to make a case that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter U.S.S.R. aggression, not U.S.A. aggression, you are supporting the Washington nuclear stockpile, not the Moscow one, don’t use Chile, Vietnam, Grenada, or Nicaragua as examples. Just maybe.

You were gonna explain to us why Soviet support for Mao constitutes grounds for the necessity of American weapons capable of destroying most of human life, but American support for Chiang Kai-shek doesn’t constitute grounds for the necessity of Russian weapons capable of destroying most of human life.

by T - 34 Sun Jan 13, 2008 20:32

Sceptic says "the actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions" - this is the grounds for the nuclear "defence" of Western Europe.

A simple question sceptic. Simply name "those who did not" and "had to put up with their invasions" who had similar relations with the Soviet Union to those that states in Western Europe had with the Soviet Union, that is name a Soviet invasion of any country not ruled by a regime allied to the Soviet Union faced with internal opposition, or a conflict within the regime. Name a country the Soviet Union, post-1945 (that is outside the brief period in which it was allied with the United States), went out and took over by driving Red Army tanks across the border. Any country that was not previously run by a regime allied to Mosocw. If this is "the actuality" then tell us about it. If you cannot name such a country, a country where a Soviet military intervention was analogous to a Soviet invasion of say West Germany, or Norway, then admit that this part of your case for risking potential nuclear extermination has no basis.

by Sceptic Sun Jan 13, 2008 20:43

The so called red threat loomed very large in the American consciousness after the communist takeover in China. This was the backdrop to the formative stages of the cold war. This is what happened. It is not for me to explain a liner relationship between the event and the response or if it was the right response. You argument is with the people who made the decisions at the time as to how to respond, not with me. Maybe the response was not fully correct in every respect but you do have to appreciate what a shock the takeover was. Ditto the Chinese bomb in ’64 which gave Goldwater a large boost. Read contemporaneous accounts not left wing polemical history accounts and you might gain more insight. Cuba was the example of a heavy Soviet inroad in Latin America which soured an already bad atmosphere between the US and Moscow.

However, you miss a point continually – I was never suggesting that all was perfect with the western world or less still the entire non-communist world. Within its region the NATO states were mostly democratic. Not all, but as cannot be repeated too often you cannot always choose nice people as your friends in the real world of international relations when the stakes are so high. What you are suggesting is that all the Western Governments who founded NATO were all completely wrong or morally bankrupted and that a handful of people of the type who read the Morning Star were the right and moral ones. Moreover this is not a question of believing Governments. The West German people were very close to communism and made their own minds up on the basis of the evidence before their eyes. They valued the US alliance more than any promise of a united neutral Germany. The Norwegian and Dutch people knew what occupation was first hand. Neutrality did not do much for them against Hitler nor they reckoned, not unreasonably, would it help counter Stalin if matters came to a crunch. Hence NATO.

The point about deterrence is that is succeeded. That there was no Soviet invasion of Western Europe was due to deterrence. You are turning this around to say that there was no Soviet invasion and therefore there was no threat and no need for deterrence but this does not follow logically. You are asking me a prove a geopolitical negative which is a fallacy as it is impossible to do.

by T - 34 Sun Jan 13, 2008 21:34

Apparently "the actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions".

Not potentially this might have happened, but this actually did happen. Now name the places analogous with Western Europe where this happened. One single solitary example of a Soviet invasion of a state outside its 'sphere of influence'. Go on, that is the basis on which you have claimed that to risk the extermination of almost all human life was necessary.

While you are at it explain why nuclear defence was necessary against the U.S.S.R. cause it supported Mao, but not against the U.S. cause it supported the KMT?

"you cannot always choose nice people as your friends in the real world of international relations when the stakes are so high."

Or:

"there was not a symmetry of vice on both side. One block was democratic and free and the other was founded on fear and party dictatorship"

Which is it? Cause it is not the same. In one statement we have a "democratic and free" block in another realpolitic that included mass murdering dictatorships.

Explain what "stakes" were "so high"? Cause you have kinda half moved on from claiming a prospective Soviet military invasion of Western Europe as your grounds for supporting nuclear exterminationism to pointing to the fact the USSR was "oppressive within its own domain" if this is the case for opposing the USSR than the same case must be applied to twenty odd U.S. backed dictatorships (many of which were much more brutal than post Stalin cold war Russia), and from hence to the United States given the fact some were basically dependant on Washington.

The self same logic could be employed by Moscow, well this is the real world, stakes are high, sure we would like if Hungary could go its own way but we are surrounded by hostile powers. You are the person employing Kremlin logic, not me.

"Cuba was the example of a heavy Soviet inroad in Latin America which soured an already bad atmosphere between the US and Moscow."

But you listed Chile, Grenada and Nicaragua as well and I asked for outside Cuba. In any case Cuba was not invaded by the Soviet Union, but the United States! Are you arguing for the USSR nuclear defence again?

The fate of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, before any "Soviet presence" in the Western hemisphere, overthrown by U.S. covert action in favour of the usual brutal military dictatorship, and earlier similar, even more overt, pre-WW 2 interventions, demonstrate what was going on under the 'cold war' bracket in Latin America, and that it was a tactic by Washington to scream 'Sovet Union!!!', 'Communism!!!!' as a pretext for its policing.

The rest of your argument is (a) something is popular therefore it must be right (and y'know I wouldn't cite a German example if that was my argument) and (b) if my argument were correct it would mean that various governments must be "morally bankrupt" (how this constitues a counter-argument is beyond me).

Produce a tenable counter-argument to what I'm saying, and can the muck throwing like this: "What you are suggesting is that a handful of people of the type who read the Morning Star were the right and moral ones"

by T - 34 Sun Jan 13, 2008 21:40

"They valued the US alliance more than any promise of a united neutral Germany."

Can you tell me when anyone was given the option on both a Russian withdrawal from East Germany and an American withdrawal from West Germany?

Also when are you getting around to defending your claim that Truman and the U.S. turned against the U.S.S.R. because of Soviet domination in central Europe, as opposed to the fact they were clearly hostile to the Soviet Union long before this.

by ex IUS Sun Jan 13, 2008 21:44

The simple facts are:

1. The peoples of those European countries with the freedom to freely decide their political system always rejected communism.

2. The West didn't need to keep its people imprisoned behind a booby-trapped and mined wall/barbed-wire fence. The East did.

3. The USSR used military force to suppress the people in countries within its own sphere because it assumed (correctly) that such action wouldn't provoke retaliation. It didn't dare do the same against the NATO countries presumably because it feared massive nuclear retaliation. While it cannot be proved that the USSR would not have invaded Western Europe even without a nuclear-armed West, the experience of Eastern Europe tends to suggest otherwise.

5. The USSR took control of Eastern Europe by a combination of direct military force, and political subversion supported by the presence and threat of military force. The political subversion usually took the form of the strategem of the so-called "anti-fascist" front and the planting of agent-agitators within the democratic parties. The Prague putsch was the worst example. (My former IUS comrades tried the same with the USI in the early 1970s - All they succeeded in doing was to split the Irish student movement. It has never recovered. Those comrades in the "Stickies" (sorry, Labour Party) with long memories will remember the days of shame and Comrade " No free speech for fascists" Vipond.)

6. Yalta merely agreed spheres of influence. In other words, the right of veto in respect of military and treaty alliances.The Big Three agreed that the nations liberated from the Nazis would have free elections to elect their governments. Yalta did not concede the right to the USSR to subvert the duly elected governments, or to imprison and execute thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of dissidents.

by CorporateObama Sun Jan 13, 2008 23:22

"The political subversion usually took the form of the strategem of the so-called "anti-fascist" front

Before you continue your russia bashing, remember that WWII was won over soviet bodies. 20,000,000 of them (or was it more?). I don't blame them for being a little paranoid about fascism. Personally I'm grateful for the great sacrifice made by the russian people. A proud resourceful and brave nation.People are just far too willing to join in parroting US propaganda. It's rather sad. And shills like septic are even more despicable.

The americans were quite happy to sit back for a few years and let us rot until pearl harbour.

by auntiewar Sun Jan 13, 2008 23:45

The US is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons against a civilian target and many would say without just cause.

A good site, well worth visiting.
http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/asia/japan/hiroshima_...p.htm

Personally I fear them far more than russia. The russian nation has had its territories invaded more than once and know the true horrors of protracted warfare first hand.

by neighbourly Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:21

more links to videos of Nuclear testing by USA, USSR, PRC, UK & France
http://sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpa...id=39
some other wikipedia info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing

....."Since 1945 there have been a total of 2,057 known nuclear tests worldwide. The United States and the former Soviet Union conducted the majority of these with the U.S. performing 1,030 tests from 1945 - 1992 and the Soviet Union carrying out 715 between 1949 and 1990. In 1963 both the Soviet Union and the United States signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty which prohibited nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. Additionally, the treaty banned underground tests that would cause "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control" the explosions were conducted." All the same tests were aimed at humans as the treatment of the Bikini Atoll natives & their subsequent lawsuits legally proved. (c/f http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll )

a list of test sites -

1. Alaska (US) -- 3 Tests
2. Johnston Island (US) -- 12 tests
3. Christmas Island (UK & US) -- 30 tests
4. Malden Island (UK) -- 3 tests
5. Fangataufa Atoll (France) -- 12 tests
6. Mururoa Atoll (France) -- 175 tests
7. Nevada (US) -- 935 tests
8. Colorado (US) -- 2 tests
9. New Mexico (US) -- 2 tests
10. Mississippi (US) -- 2 tests
11. South Atlantic Ocean (US) -- 12 tests
12. Algeria (France) -- 17 tests
13. Russia (USSR) -- 214 tests (many at Novaya and Zemlya)
14. Ukraine (USSR) -- 2 tests
15. Kazakhstan (USSR) -- 496 tests
16. Uzbekistan (USSR) -- 2 tests
17. Turkmenistan (USSR) -- 1 test
18. Pakistan (Pakistan) -- 2 tests
19. India (India) -- 4 tests
20. Lop Nur (China) -- 41 tests
21. Marshall Islands (US) -- 66 tests
22. Australia (UK) -- 12 tests

by ex-IUS Mon Jan 14, 2008 13:06

Hitler did not start WWII until he had secured his Eastern front by way of the Molotov/Ribbenthrop pact. Rooseveldt might have delayed entry into the war until Pearl Harbour had delivered a consensus in the US to go to war but he never sold out to the fascists in the way Stalin and Molotov did. When his erstwhile Nazi ally turned on him in 1941 the US and UK would have been well within their rights to allow Stalin reap the fruits of his treachery. Instead, in the bleak period before Stalingrad and before the Soviets had relocated their war-industries Eastward the Allies kept the USSR afloat by the PQ convoys.

Of course the Russian people are wonderful and noble etc. Aren't we all. However, they also had the misfortune to have had one of the most homicidal, principle-free regimes in the history of the planet. But this is not the fault of the Russians. After all they had voted for Kerensky's Social Democrats. It was the peoples of the USSR who paid most dearly for the dictatorship of the Bolshevics.

The 20 million who are quoted to illustrate the extent of the sacrifice made by the USSR in the war started by Hitler/Stalin is merely an estimate of the demographic shortfall in the USSR in the 1960s. This figure also includes the people (including entire ethnic populations) who began to 'go missing' after the Bolshies came to power, and who kept on going missing until long after Stalin had gone to whever mass-murderers go when they die. The probable USSR military and civilian losses in WWII were less than 5 million (still a terrible number, but a direct consequence of a military strategy which ignored their own losses and inflicted mass starvation on their own civilians. Even the Nazis tried to minimize losses to their own, not so Zhukov and the other Russian generals who relied on a crude cannon-fodder strategy in most of their battles. Hero of the Soviet Union, Zhukov, was no Rommel. He never won a battle where he outnumbered the Nazis by less than three to one in armour and infantry.)

Of course, since the USSR imploded and the archives were opened, only the blindest ideologues believe that the intentions of the USSR towards the free countries of Europe was benign. Luckily for us all, not least the imprisoned citizens of the USSR and its captive nations, the West stood fast. Nuclear deterrence worked. It deterred. And when the USSR tried to up the anti in response, it bankrupted itself. We all owe Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher a debt of gratitude.

by T - 34 Mon Jan 14, 2008 15:02

Ex-IUS: “The USSR used military force to suppress the people in countries within its own sphere because it assumed (correctly) that such action wouldn't provoke retaliation. It didn't dare do the same against the NATO countries presumably because it feared massive nuclear retaliation. While it cannot be proved that the USSR would not have invaded Western Europe even without a nuclear-armed West, the experience of Eastern Europe tends to suggest otherwise.”

The experience of Eastern Europe is it was occupied by the Soviet Union during the Second World War, when the Red Army was being transported in American trucks, this occupation coperfastened by meetings like Potsdam and Yalta where Soviet domination of the area was agreed by the Western powers.
Our pro-nuclear exterminationists are both arguing that Western governments were made up of “highly perceptive and intelligent people who were convinced enough about the Soviet actions and postures to found such an alliance” (Sceptic) and that they were dumb enough to think a Stalin led Soviet government was gonna hold free elections in Poland (a country with an incipient civil war at the time too I might add!)

Eastern Europe is not then analogous with Western Europe. Twist it whatever way you like you cannot prove intent to invade Western Europe based on anything in Eastern Europe.

Are you the same ex-IUS’er who was posting above in praise of the organisational efficiency of Soviet communism and making extravagant claims for the powers of the Warsaw pact, if so care to address the counter-argument above to the claim the Soviet Union in 1985 - on the verge of going out of business - was capable of mounting a conventional invasion of Western Europe.

Here is some modern American scholarship on Potsdam:

“Similarly, at Potsdam Secretary of State Byrnes seems clearly supportive of having Germany split, with one part in each of the two opposing camps. Some of the key decisions at this conference surrounded the economic relations among the four zones of the divided Germany. It has been the conventional view that these had the unanticipated effect of supporting the long-term division of Germany. Given the new archival material, this view seems naive and slights the intellects of the diplomats of the day. Rather, it was their intent that the economic provisions support the division.
Had the U.S. position remained this accepting of the Soviet role in Germany, it seems likely that the Cold War would have been much less confrontational. However, by late 1945 the division of Germany was no longer acceptable to the United States. In order to secure public opinion in support of a sustained American role in Europe, the Truman administration could not abide the division of Germany. From this perspective, it is clear that the American leadership were not following an ideology-driven policy. Rather, the leaders were engaging in realpolitik: They were supporting German reunification not on the basis of self-determination, but as a way to enhance American power”
http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_archives_00spring/t...g.htm

Our ex-IUS’er also claims:

“Yalta merely agreed spheres of influence. In other words, the right of veto in respect of military and treaty alliances. The Big Three agreed that the nations liberated from the Nazis would have free elections to elect their governments. Yalta did not concede the right to the USSR to subvert the duly elected governments, or to imprison and execute thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of dissidents.”

Kindly explain the relevance of this (and other statements as to the tyranny of Moscow ‘communism’) to the discussion. Given the fact the United States armed almost every brutal right wing dictatorship on the planet post-1945 - with a repression death toll far in excess of post-Stalin Russia, given the fact that at the time of the forming of NATO key European states still ran brutal colonial empires, given the fact that the top layers of NATO societies included erstwhile followers of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, you would have to be seriously ill informed to think Soviet breaches of human rights sparked the Western end of the Cold War.
Other than that the case is what they were a nasty lot, therefore they must have had a propensity to invade western Europe, aside from the fact the same logic could be used by the Kremlin, it doesn’t follow. Based on that evidence of soviet repression in the East, you could more aptly argue that their increasing inability to successfully control those areas, make it highly unlikely that they aimed to, or even could, expand their empire.

In addition if the occupation of Eastern Europe didn’t have the tacit agreement of the Western powers, and apparently led to the Cold War, how come what you cite as central to that occupation, - that is the establishment of post-war pro-Soviet governments, took place at a time when the Soviet Union didn’t have nuclear weapons, and most of European Russia was in ruins after the German invasion. The military advantage was clearly in American hands, surely if they wanted to they could have, not even rolled back the Soviet Union to its pre-war borders, but simply pressured them to give in to having neutral parliamentary democracies in the east. They could have for instance demanded, backed by their overwhelming military advantage, negotiations between Poland’s Soviet proxies and the remnants of the Polish Home Army. They didn’t. They didn’t because they didn’t care less. They cared as much for human rights in Poland as they did for human rights in Latin America. Moreover rather than the apparently ramshackle and inefficient little Soviet empire in Eastern Europe constituting a threat to American imperialism, it was actually to their advantage, particularly from the point of view of frightening the traditionally isolationist American public into supporting perpetual warfare. Something which Washington was clearly successful in doing as still to this day, after the Soviet Union collapsed in on itself leaving the Lada as the archaeological remains, one still finds people claiming it could have drove across the north European plain, swatting all opposition to one side effortlessly, with its first target a state which, even when it had a much weaker economy, was able to almost single handedly come very close to defeating the Soviet Union (beaten in the end only by the ideology of its then government). Tell us the one about the evil genius hiding in the cave!

CorporateObama: “Before you continue your russia bashing, remember that WWII was won over soviet bodies. 20,000,000 of them (or was it more?). I don't blame them for being a little paranoid about fascism. Personally I'm grateful for the great sacrifice made by the russian people.”

Most of whom had no input whatsoever into the Kremlin policy for good or ill, the Soviet state was effectively allied with Nazi Germany prior to the invasion, and most of those millions didn’t die in heroic resistance, making a “great sacrifice”, but were slaughtered by starvation or execution in camps or elsewhere in the occupied zone. Actually the bulk of the Soviet citizenry was quite happy to desert, run away, surrender or collaborate, until the nature of Nazi racism became clear. Without that racist ideology the USSR would not have lasted a year of the Second World War, its population had little desire to co-operate with the war effort, and would have rallied to practically any alternative Russian, Ukrainian etc.. government or governments had Germany’s rulers the wit to appoint such.
Indeed the near collapse of the USSR due to discontent and lack of popular legitimacy in 1941 is yet another argument against the pro-nuclear exterminationists and their fantasy tales of the all powerful evil empire.

Back to ex-IUS who in his latest posting reckons: “Of course, since the USSR imploded and the archives were opened, only the blindest ideologues believe that the intentions of the USSR towards the free countries of Europe was benign.”

So you should be able to reference documents in those archives which support your case that the Red Army was just straining at the leash waiting to pour across the West German border. Go ahead no one is stopping you.

While you are at it you might explain how you marry “the USSR imploded” with the idea it had the capacity (not even intent) for any kind of aggression towards Western Europe.

Ex- IUS: “After all they had voted for Kerensky's Social Democrats”

This would have been difficult, because much less than the Social Democrats being “Kerensky’s” he wasn’t even a member of the party. Really it is symptomatic of the confusion of the pro-nuclear exterminationists on this thread that they have as “Kerensky's” the party which overthrew him. Remember these people are claiming that potential nuclear extermination was justifiable based on their interpretation of history, with particular emphasis on Russia. Apologies for thinking they have flimsy grounds for such an extravagant and extreme position, that one would think requires a lot of justification, when basic facts escape them, never mind any issue of analysis.

Ex-IUS: “The probable USSR military and civilian losses in WWII were less than 5 million”

This claim is actually stone mad. If it were true (lets just enter la la land for the sake of argument for a minute), it would mean total USSR losses (civilian and military) were LESS than German military losses ALONE on ALL fronts, even though ex-IUS claims that the Red Army was led by incompetents who just threw cannon fodder into the meat grinder etc... Moreover about 50% of that 5 million were probably Jews (remember lots of European Russian cities were majority Jewish in 1941 - about 5 million strong Jewish population in total in USSR) you are left with a what maximum 2.5 million Soviet gentile military and civilian casulty rate. Like what's next there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz? Buy a used ideology justifying potentially turning earth into a scarred wasteland off you? I wouldn't buy a matchbox off you buddy.

If anyone is actually interested:

“The number of Soviet deaths in the Great Patriotic War was one of those crucial historical numbers that were grossly distorted in Soviet historical writing prior to glasnost'. In the Stalin period the official figure was 7 million, a figure stated by Stalin in March 1946.(1) This extreme understatement was presumably intended both to hide the country's postwar weakness from potential new enemies and also to protect the image of Stalin's 'wise leadership'. Under Khrushchev the figure was raised to 20 million.(2) Gorbachev's campaign to fill in the blank spots of Soviet history led to the establishment in March 1989 of a committee attached to Goskomstat USSR, which included officials of Goskomstat itself, the Ministry of Defence, the archives, some research institutes and Moscow State University. This committee arrived at a new figure for Soviet war losses of 26.6 million, which was included in Gorbachev's speech on the 45th anniversary of the end of the war.(3) The explanation by the leading demographers on this committee as to how they arrived at this figure was set out a few months later in a short article in Vestnik statistiki.(4) Its authors explained that 26.6 was an approximate point estimate and that allowing for its approximate nature, it was more accurate to give a figure of 26-27 million war deaths.” http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3955/is_n4_v46/a.../pg_1

by T - 34 Mon Jan 14, 2008 15:25

Ex-IUS: "This figure also includes the people (including entire ethnic populations) who began to 'go missing' after the Bolshies came to power, and who kept on going missing until long after Stalin had gone to whever mass-murderers go when they die."

"This figure" is a figure for deaths. So you are saying "entire ethnic populations" were killed in repression after the Bolsheviks came to power and this process went on long after the death of Stalin. Name one instance, remember not of the expulsion of entire ethnic groups with many killed, but of the extermination of an entire ethnic group, carried out by the Soviet government, at any time. Bonus prize for naming an instance which took place after 1953. I'll make it easy for you by telling you that you will not be able to. Because there were ethnic groups rounded up and expelled from their homes and sent elsewhere in the Soviet Union, with many many deaths in the process, Volga Germans, and Chechens for instance. There wasn't however any case of an entire ethnic group being exterminated.

This took place during the Second World War, it wasn't going on in the 60s and 70s and 80s after the Stalinist period. This may be a side issue to the main story of this thread, but it again demonstrates how the pro-nuclear exterminationists are claiming this, that and the other, things they kinda half remember from reading a book review in a newspapers a couple of years ago, all skewed in whatever way will suit their argument and help them believe what they want to believe. It is obviously fair enough having a sketchy knowledge of Russian history, and Cold War history, in the general run of things, but if ya wanna come on to an indymedia thread praising potential nuclear armagedon, Ronald Reagan, and Margret Thatcher, then do your homework first!

by Sceptic Mon Jan 14, 2008 22:22

T –34 your technique is the verbal incontinence of a true soviet buff. All of it is a snow job of detail, much if not all of it irrelevant, and sleight of hand demonising of the west and the entire non-communist world – all cruel imperialists, crypto fascists, did not really care about Poland and all the rest. You drown out the major valid points of your opponents with realms and realms of verbiage about irrelevancies and side issues all of which is rather vacuous and unconvincing. The simple reality is people in the west lived as free people and thought that freedom worth defending against a menacing and oppressive colossus. Hence a defensive alliance and a management of a situation of tension that sought to avoid all out war. The fellow travellers were always a phenomena, - especially in academic and intellectual circles - and you seem a latter day fellow traveller despite your protestations of opposition to tyranny. And none of this Stalin the bad exception stuff (the benign post Stalinist USSR). It was the post Stalin leaders which crushed Budapest and hanged Imre Nagy and also abolished the Prague Spring with a heavy hand. They also supported the Dergue in Ethiopia for years and invaded Afghanistan as late as 1979. That is the background to “Threads”.

by T - 34 Tue Jan 15, 2008 00:31

Sceptic wrote earlier: “The actuality was that those who did not have formidable weapons to deter the soviets had to put up with their invasions and their imperial domination for two generations until such time as the soviet block melted away under its own contradictions and inefficiency.”

This then justifies the risk of nuclear extermination as "the task was to deter the USSR" from invading Western Europe.

Care to name one occasion post-1945 when the Soviet Union invaded anywhere analogous to a Western European state, ie somewhere other than an intervention to bolster a 'pro-Soviet regime', or policing within the Warsaw Pact.

Sceptic wrote earlier: “The USSR turned their just fight against the Nazis into domination of eastern and central Europe – it was these things that set Truman and the US against them.”

Care to explain how, if that was the case, there was an American military expedition invading Soviet Russia decades previous to that, in 1919/1920, and how come Truman greeted the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 with these words: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word."

Sceptic wrote earlier: “One block was democratic and free and the other was founded on fear and party dictatorship”

Care to explain the innumerable U.S. backed dictatorships in the 'Third World' and the two military, and one Fascist, dictatorships, which were members of NATO.

Sceptic now writes: "And none of this Stalin the bad exception stuff (the benign post Stalinist USSR)"

Care to point to where I describe post Stalin USSR as "benign". It is the case though that there were far far more deaths from state repression in what you call the "democratic and free" block than in post-Stalinist USSR.

Some Examples of that:

Indonesia:
http://www.brianwillson.com/awolcrimhist.html

The School of the Americas:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/SOA/torture101_SOA.html

El Salvador:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War

by neighbourly Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:10

The Spanish daily of record "El Pais" has today published a timed release CIA briefing on nuclear proliferation which was dated May17th 1974. It was prepared shortly after India succesfully carried out her first nuclear weapon tests. It transpires that Franco's Spain was on the list of states going for the bomb. Today's report is not the first time the subject has been alluded to, "El Pais" first suggested that the literally dying regime of Franco held Algeria to be a serious threat to its then still remaining posessions in Western Sahara, but today's report includes a photo of the CIA report. "Spain with moderate uranium resources, extensive long range nuclear power program [then 3 were in operation & 17 were planned] &a pilot seperation plant & Franco's refusal to sign the NPT suggested the bomb was on the drawing board". The report went on to speculate that the bilateral agreements signed between Franco & the USA [Eisenhower] & the entry of Spain to NATO would forestall any sense of insecurity especially in a post-Franco regime. This is very interesting for many reasons :-
The above debate on conventional military invasion & defense plans for western Europe between "T34" and "sceptic" has made no mention of the signals systems at either Mannheim, Germany or Girona, Catalonia. The exclusion of those tactical defense and monitoring systems belies an ignorance of how far Soviet tanks could actually roll into Europe. It's one of those clichés that pop up all the time. As if within a week the red army would have been negotiating the bottleneck of the Naas bypass without the need for cussing. But Europe wasn't then nor is now, my friends that flat & easy to roll over. It should be interesting in the years to come to see how thorough the plans of NATO strategists were to move essentials systems over the Pyrennes in much the same way in his turn Stalin had moved core systems over the Urals to cheat Hitler of his rolling tanks.

Anyway - this a great thread with lots of great links. So here is another to today's article in "El Pais" and even if you don't read Spanish, an excerpt of the CIA report is used as an illustration, is quite legible, has no censorious black lines & is in English.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/bomba/atomica/pla...4/Tes

by wageslave Tue Jan 22, 2008 01:21

For those of you still not convinced that the US represents the greatest danger to humanity on the planet...what can you say about the people who actually considered this apart from
"they were/are batshit insane":

http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto

by future trader Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:46

European press airs proposals that NATO prepare first strike nuclear plans. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1...2.xml

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,,2244782,00.html

the bunker types who've written it are former German top general Naumann http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Naumann former French admiral Lanxade http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lanxade & the former chief of Dutch military Henk van der Breemen (who is also an organist as it happens) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henk_van_den_Breemen
& the Brit Lord Peter Inge, chief of the general staff in 1992-94, then chief of the defence staff in 1994-97. He also served on the Butler inquiry into Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and British intelligence. Oh yep, Bill Clinton's top soldier played a part too.

great bunch of people very scant on the wiki biogs. I can count no more than 3 sons and 1 daughter between them & only know the dutch one got to play a gig at Westminster cathedral. Anyway the five generals think the problems facing the world (which they're recommending pre-emptive nuclear strike planning for) are -

* Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
= nuke em.

· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
= nuke em.
· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
= nuke em.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.
The EU and UN will be stronger and stock markets bouyant if NATO nuke em.