And what do you think of that answer? To ME, It sounds horrible.
Use nukes for deterance as in OTL.
And blowing off the idea of suffering a war of conquest? How many would die?
And what of the cost of this supposed resistance?
If this is the socialist idea of patriotism, it sucks!
Umm, yeah, so you support the allies of your enemies because it is somehow better to be oppressed by communists instead of Westerners.
Trying to wrap my American brain around this "logic" is literally causing a small pain at the top of my head.
Are you a patriotic european socialist?
If so, FYI I am not trying to insult you, merely expressing my lack of understanding of your POV.
No I'm not a patriotic european socialist, instead im a patriotic Australian social democrat.
I actually agree that the idea of unilateral nuclear disarmanent is nuts. Even a neutral Europe in the Cold War should have nukes (in fact it would be more important because of no US support).
What I think is interesting though, even just in our exchanges over this topic is the way differing political views on domestic issues seem to seamlessly move over to foreign policy views.
I say this as I assume that you are right-wing conservative?
I think on both sides of the political spectrum there is a 'fellow traveller' syndrome. So left-wingers in the Cold War who were quite democratic themselves would tend to excuse atrocities commited by Castro, whereas democratic Western right-wingers would tend to excuse atrocities committed by Pinochet.
I think it's a sort of attitude that 'we have the same goal but different methods'.
I understand the twisted logic in this, but to some extent there would be examples where I would be guilty of this. If I had of been alive in the 1970's (which I wasn't) I would have been extremely anti-apartheid and against both the white regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia. I probably would have gone on protests etc and I would certainly have supported much harsher sanctions. However, at the same time I would have taken a critical but more 'muted' stance towards Idi Amin's regime in Uganda. I understand the hypocrisy of this as Amin was massively more brutal than SA or Rhod, but this is I think how I would have felt.
I think also (and I don't want you to take as an insult) that most Americans are far more idealistic and black-and-white in terms of views of foreign policy. I say this from talking to quite a few Americans who live out here in Australia (and most are not conservatives, they're liberals). This compares to a more realpolitic, moral greyscale view of the world that Australians, Briton and even more so continental Europeans tend to take. This is particularly notable on say the issue of China and Taiwan, etc.