Word: aggressors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...your article "A Plea for Nuclear Balance" [July 4], I believe there is very little chance that the major powers will engage in nuclear war in the near future. There is no conceivable advantage to be gained by any party in such a conflict. Instead, the first nuclear aggressor will in all likelihood be a relatively isolated country that is affluent enough to possess the bomb but perceives its survival to be endangered by some local dispute. More attention should be paid to controlling nuclear weapons in those areas of the world than between the superpowers...
...particular, Sakharov insists that nuclear arms reductions, which he considers supremely important, should be used to preserve or restore "parity" at all levels of nuclear weaponry: tactical, "regional" and intercontinental. The reason: an aggressor who had an advantage in one category of weapons might be tempted to try nuclear blackmail, and "there would be little cause for joy if, ultimately, the aggressor's hopes proved false and the aggressor country perished along with the rest of mankind." Thus, Sakharov regretfully rejects the idea of a nuclear freeze because it would leave the Soviet Union with a huge lead...
...conventional arms: For a long time, the West has not been relying on its "conventional" armed forces as a means sufficient for repelling a potential aggressor. [In contrast] the U.S.S.R. and the other countries of the socialist camp have armies with great numerical strength and are rearming them intensively, sparing no resources. [So] it is necessary to restore parity in the field of conventional weapons [and that] is only possible by investing large resources and by an essential change in the psychological atmosphere in the West. In the final analysis this is necessary to prevent nuclear...
...nuclear freeze: Precisely because an all-out nuclear war means collective suicide, we can imagine that a potential aggressor might count on a lack of resolve on the part of the country under attack to take the step leading to that suicide, i.e., it could count on its victim capitulating for the sake of saving what could be saved. There must be a strategic parity of nuclear forces so that neither side will venture to embark on a limited or regional nuclear war. Of course I realize that in attempting not to lag behind a potential enemy...
...past 30 years, the doctrine of deterrence has lain at the heart of America's--and the world's--strategic thinking. This doctrine holds that should any nation launch a nuclear attack, enough of its victim's missiles would survive to destroy the aggressor. Anything that threatens to neutralize or eliminate one side's nuclear forces endangers this hair-trigger balance...