On Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 12:18:38 PM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 07:37:18 GMT, Charles Packer <mai...@cpacker.org>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 08:54:07 -0700, Paul S Person wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 07:38:35 GMT, Charles Packer <mai...@cpacker.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Mon, 17 Apr 2023 21:26:57 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Monday, April 17, 2023 at 8:10:40?AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> >>>>> Five SF Works That Predicted a Very Different End to the Cold War
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "United forever in friendship and labour,
> >>>>> Our mighty republics will ever endure.
> >>>>> The Great Soviet Union will live through the ages.
> >>>>> The dream of a people their fortress secure."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> https://www.tor.com/2023/04/17/five-sf-works-that-predicted-a-very-
> >>>different-end-to-the-cold-war/
> >>>>
> >>>> "Its only real assets were vast oceanic moats, half a continent?s
> >>>> natural resources,
> >>>> less populous and militarily weak neighbors, the world?s largest
> >>>> economy, a military-industrial establishment that dwarfed every other
> >>>> nation?s (possibly all other nations combined) and an unparalleled
> >>>> entertainment industry that spread their perspective worldwide."
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>One asset apparently overlooked in those novels is that the Americans
> >>>had a mass media fully capable of making its audience believe that the
> >>>Cold War was a symmetrical face-off between equally powerful
> >>>adversaries. Said audience then fully supported the space race and the
> >>>resulting technological advances, etc. I'm old enough to remember this..
> >>>Only in recent years have I been reading that the Soviet economy was
> >>>only a fraction that of the American. History shows that ultimately
> >>>economic power wins wars.
> >>
> >> Indeed it does.
> >>
> >> But it isn't just the size, it's the distribution. By focusing on
> >> military hardware, the SU was able to pose a credible threat. For a
> >> while, at least.
> >
> >But when did that threat become /not/ credible? I would pick the
> >early 1970s. At least that was when I realized that the West would
> >win. I noticed that the very media that made things seem so scary
> >also contained clues dropped in between the lines. Those were the
> >years that I became a loyal reader of the New York Times, in
> >particular.
> Well, IIRC, NATO didn't agree with you.
>
> NATO's assessment was that, in the early 80s, it was, at best, evenly
> matched against the Soviets. At worst, the Soviets would have won.
>
> This changed in a few years, as economics did indeed give NATO the
> advantage.
> n
> --

Remember this one? 1982's "The Third World War: The Untold Story"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_World_War:_The_Untold_Story

Ostpolitik and detente were to go wrong, Soviet T-80s were to pour
through the Fulda Gap, and The US and NATO would face the decision
of whether to use battlefield nukes to stop them.

This is the background for the development of "neutron bombs"* -
enhanced radiation weapons to be used as anti-tank crew and
anti-infantry weapons, as opposed to city-killing ICBMs with
huge warheads or several smaller ones mounted on MIRVs -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle

A national command seeing that the opposition was using smaller, battlefield
nukes as having crossed a line and responding with its ICBMs, strategic bombers
and/or sub-launched missiles would bring us to the predicted götterdämmerung.
[ gotterdammerung ]

At the same time we had the MBFR talks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_and_Balanced_Force_Reductions

I actually wrote a paper on this as a PoliSci undergrad in the mid-70s.

* https://www.britannica.com/technology/neutron-bomb

--
Kevin R