Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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theology the entire world was at their feet; they must be very considerate
folks. The idea has “faded into thin air,” Pincus comments. By the end
of 1984, the nuclear balance remained about as it was when Reagan
came into office, with no noticeable Russian moves to take over the
world despite their alleged capacity to do so with ease. Once again, the
wailing over our “vulnerability” and the striking of heroic poses serves
quite different ends. 72
It was always apparent that the concept was fraudulent, and the
point is now hardly contested. In testimony before Congress, General
Benny Davis, the head of the Strategic Air Command, stated that MX
vulnerability was “no longer an issue,” because “we have discovered that
existing silos are harder than originally thought.” This fortuitous
discovery, it is hoped, will help counter critics who ask why the missile
should be deployed if it is vulnerable. Furthermore, he continued, there
never was any such vulnerability, because a successful simultaneous
attack against all three legs of the triad—bombers, submarines, and
land-based missiles—is plainly impossible, exactly as pointed out from
the start by critics of Administration rhetoric, who also added the
obvious point that a small subpart of any of these forces would more
than suffice as a deterrent. Gen. Davis also stated that “The whole
question of a window of vulnerability that was raised some years ago did
not relate specifically to the vulnerability of missile silos,” an obvious
falsehood as noted by Senator Hart, who responded: “The history of the
‘window of vulnerability’ is silo vulnerability, and any effort to portray it
as something else is a blatant attempt at revisionism.” Hart is correct,
Fred Kaplan observes, citing earlier explicit statements to this effect. The
point is that the “window of vulnerability” has outlived its usefulness as
a technique for accelerating military production, and is now in fact an
impediment to this program because of fears of survivability of the
missiles Reagan wants to produce. Therefore, the “window” has