From: "Gary Britt" 

Turkey was part of NATO, and the Russians had 1000s of tanks and millions
of soldiers many stationed in their client states on NATO's borders.  The
nukes in Turkey and the Pershings in Germany, etc. were to deter their
conventional forces.  The liberals back in the states weren't willing to
spend enough on conventional military to match the soviets tanks and men
along Nato's borders so using tactical and strategic nukes was the only way
to maintain deterrence without the matching conventional forces.  This
stuff isn't hard to understand for those not looking for a particular
answer.

Finally, those provocative nukes and other "cowboy" stunts as you
so ignorantly describe them WON THE COLD WAR, LED TO REAL STRATEGIC NUKES
REDUCTIONS AND FREED ABOUT 100 MILLION PEOPLE ALL WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT. 
If that's cowboy.  Give me cowboy every day and twice on Sundays.

Gary

"John Beamish"  wrote in
message news:410fc692$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Able?  Probably.  Willing?  Why bother ... after WWII the Russian borders
> were secure and they had a buffer of client states.
>
> The US, however, was deliberately provocative during the cold war
> (positioning missiles in Turkey which directly led to the Russian attempt
to
> put missiles in Cuba), U2 overflights, and engaging in a variety of other
> actions that were, charitably speaking, not designed to reduce tensions.
>
> You may wish to cite counter-examples.  Don't.  Both sides played the
game;
> the US was a cowboy and it wasn't the one in the white hat.
>
> "Gary Wiltshire"  wrote in message
> news:opsb50aprieipai0{at}news.barkto.com...
> > On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 00:12:28 +0100, Adam Flinton

> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Stalin certainly would have been able to had we not had the bomb.
> >
> > --
> > Gary Wiltshire
>
>

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