Tuesday, December 30, 2008

No Credible Defense Against a Soviet Attack?

This was the conclusion of a British government report in the late 1970s, as reported on by the BBC today. The report seems to have been based primarily on a comparison of numbers (of bombers, missiles, air defense systems) on both sides, not, according to the BBC report, on actual capabilities or intentions. You can download the file from Britain's National Archives here, apparently for free. I'm busy doing that right now, but I won't be able to get to it right away, because there's real ice, lake ice, in Holland right now, and I have made plans to go check it out this afternoon. It looks like there will be lake and canal skating until at least New Year's Day. These opportunities don't come along so often any more, and my computer time is therefore going to be limited this week. (Just see that I got an error message from the National Archives--probably because of heavy traffic--hah! I'm off the hook for a probing analysis for now!).

2 comments:

yooperprof said...

Enjoy the ice while it lasts.

I think it's a good bet that there will be some ice waiting for me in Michigan when I return. I just heard from a friend that the official snowfall total for the month of December in Marquette is 85 inches.

Ruud van Dijk said...

thanks (and happy new year); looks like another week of skating, although there will be an exam and other work stuff to worry about again also; I can picture the piles of snow in Marquette (talk about an unending Cold War ...)