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Old October 22nd 13, 05:28 AM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Default Space Race Driven By Nuclear Threat - Shift Toward Understanding

From Brad Guth:
On Monday, October 21, 2013 1:51:11 AM UTC-7, Stuf4 wrote:

Hola. It's clear that there has been a solid shift toward understanding
that the Space Race was driven by the nuclear threat, and this view is now
established in the mainstream. The latest video I'm aware of is this PBS
Digital Studio spot that answers the question,

snip
~ CT


Except Russia never had intentions or having taken aggressive actions as
representing any real threat to America. Virtually all the fears and any
notions of a national threat from Russia was perpetrated and/or exploited by
those of our MIC.


I *totally* disagree with that.

The USSR certainly had the option to stay put on the other side of the globe without presenting a threat to the USA. But on August 29, 1949, they made the deliberate choice to punch their card as the second member of the nuclear club. That is not a club you join *without* fully knowing that you will instantly become a serious threat to all who see you to be their enemy.

And then eight years later, on August 21, 1957, they cranked up the intensity of the threat they presented by demonstrating their ability to deliver nuclear warheads at the speed of Domino's Pizza.

"Guaranteed to destroy your city in 30 minutes or less, or your next warhead is free."

The R-7 was a huge game changer. A country that is not trying to threaten others does not develop an entirely new class of weapons such as the ICBM.

Now the point that I would say regarding the Soviet role in the Cold War is that they were not the aggressors. They developed nukes and even the R-7 in *response* to the huge threat that the USofA posed to them.

....but then we could back that up a step and say that the US developed nukes in *response* to the huge threat posed by the Third Reich.

....and we can back that up a step further to say that the Third Reich was acting in *response* to the huge threat they lived under as a result of the WWI outcome.

....and the most thorough historian would trace this entire chain back to pre-history, where it could then be handed over to anthropologists who would tell us that this cycle of violence traces back to the very dawn of hominids.

....and the most thorough anthropologist would hand this off to the evolutionary biologists who would tell us that this cycle of violence existed in the animal kingdom long before humans and proto-humans existed. And they'd show the evidence that this type of behavior happened even before the Animal kingdom arose from the Plant kingdom.

Violence is so ingrained in the natural order of things in this world that I see it to be a mistake to draw arbitrary lines of separation and to say that "this group was innocent of threats and aggression whereas this group was guilty".

If we are to ever evolve beyond this cycle of violence, we must first own up to our collective complicity.

~ CT