Richard Jernigan -> RE: "Moon Hoax" Conspiracy Theorists Rev up for 50th Anniversary (Jul. 17 2019 22:47:50)
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ORIGINAL: henrym3483 if they spent that dosh on making the world a better place than thinking up even more ingenious, devilish and horrid ways of destroying each other what a world it would be As I have said, I was not part of the inner circle of the Cold War in the USA, but you might say part of the next circle. Many of the people I dealt with in the latter half of my Cold War career had the word "Secretary" in their job title, e.g. "Assistant Secretary," "Undersecretary," and so forth. One of my younger relatives, born a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, asked me what the Cold War was like. "Forty years of absolute insanity," I replied. "How did you manage to resist?" he asked. "I didn't," I replied, "I participated." I was not as far gone in paranoia as, for example Richard Perle, whom I dealt with. He mistrusted our allies as much as he did our avowed enemies. But I regarded the existence of the Soviet Union as a mortal danger, to be dealt with seriously and with great care. Given the posture and policies of the Soviet Union, we had no choice but to respond in some fashion. Given our policies and posture, neither did the Soviets have any alternative. Jointly we developed the capability to destroy civilization many times over, in "self defense." Viewed from a slight distance this outcome seems just a little paradoxical. Our superior economic, industrial and scientific capabilities, plus our successful strategy of converting Germany and Japan from mortal enemies to allies, one of the few times this was achieved since the Roman Empire, fueled our tendency to think of "winning" the confrontation of ideologies. I'm not qualified to comment in any detail on the Soviets' motivation, but it was as determined as our own. Reagan and Schulz recognized the opportunity afforded by the fatal weakness of the Soviet economy, and found willing negotiating partners in Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. Unfortunately there was no leader like George Marshall (and others) to take advantage of the unexpected sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, in order to convert an erstwhile foe into an ally. We propped up the incapable and drunken Yeltsin, while today's oligarchs looted Russia. Putin still has a chip on his shoulder over that, despite his success in harnessing the oligarchs to his imperial chariot. Another reason why we tend to spend money on weapons and stunts like the moon landing is that they are much easier problems to solve than "making the world a better place." The Apollo program, and its predecessors Mercury and Gemini had simple, explicit goals, with engineering solutions. So does weapon development. People seldom predict accurately the cost or schedule of large technical projects, but they get close enough to the right answers to get the money to begin, to produce some positive results, and to generate the momentum to keep the money flowing until the objective is achieved, at least to general satisfaction. In the first place, people seriously disagree on what objectives to pursue to "make the world a better place." When they do agree, the law of unintended consequences frequently produces a world that is no better, or often enough, one that is worse. I'm not counseling inertia in the face of the world's problems. For an 81-year old American I'm left of center politically, which would put me near the middle of the road in Europe. I'm just trying to explain my take on why we spend our money the way we do. We spend it on objectives we can agree upon, with reasonably predictable outcomes, despite whatever moral imperative there may be to go in a different direction. RNJ
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