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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (2382)	10/13/2000 9:10:17 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

We should be prepared for such unlikely senarios as North Korea and Iraq both causeing problems at the same time. Ten years ago this combination might have justified a larger force than we have now; today it does not. Both of these countries have suffered major degradation of their offensive capacity, Iraq by a major military defeat and an extended period of sanctions, North Korea by a prolonged economic collapse and the complete withdrawal of Chinese support. Both have been reduced to strategic parity - or less - with our regional allies, and while these allies might need our help in a conflict, this would not involve the kind of massive deployment that would be necessary if we were fighting a major enemy on our own. In both cases it is much more cost-effective to counter the threat by selling arms to our regional allies and training them to use them than by building up our own forces. The only scenario I can see that would require a larger force than we have now would involve a full-scale ground war with either China or Russia, and there is simply no reason for that to happen. We should also prepare a ballistic missle defence. Our current defence against missile attack - the absolute certainty of cataclysmic retaliation - has protected us successfully through some of the tensest moments in our history. I see no reason to think that it will not be sufficient now, when tensions are drastically reduced.