Re: Minimum Nuclear Deterrence - reply to Dr. Roy

[Vamsi Musunuru <vamsi@siliconcorp.com>]

    Thank you for writing Dr. Subroto Roy but I am afraid we are doomed. 
More
intelligent being will be exploring our fossils 2000 years from now.  We
simply
don't have the adequate Mental Models to build a strong nation and a
vibrant
economy.

    The fact is that we have a large poor population.  This is undisputed.
However, how we go about solving this problem is at the heart of the
disagreement.  The Government CANNOT alleviate poverty on its own.  It
needs to
encourage industrial development so that jobs/opportunities are created.
Instead, what you are advocating is that the Government should spend less
on
defense and more on the poor.  WRONG!  The Government should remove
obstacles
for the Industry so that more jobs are created and so the poor can take
care of
themselves.  Removing obstacles doesn't require any additional expenditure
from
the Government but it would surely employ 1000s out of poverty!!  It is an
interventionist mindset that Government spending can alleviate
poverty....we
cannot go down this path after 5 decades of it!  Government has clear role
in
poverty alleviation and it has not played that role for the past 50 years
because it is political harder to do so.  It is a lot easier to give away
electricity, water, and food grain than to encourage the construction of
Power
Plants, Water ways, and high yield Farming.  The later takes effort and it
is
clearly more stable in the long run.  By encouraging industry to produce
more
Power and Food the prices and quantity will be adequate to satisfy the
entire
population - no kind of Government intervention can guarantee this kind of
prosperity!!

    Now that I have successfully argued that the Government has a role in
poverty alleviation and that is not necessarily cutting defense spending
but it
has to do more with removing obstacles so the industry can do its work.  I
want
to point out why the Government should spend heavily on the Military.

  1. It can be shown that Military research has benifited the American
Industry
     with inventions like the Diode, Transistor, Internet, in the furture,
High
     Definition TV, etc.  I can only imagine how many Jobs these inventions
have
     created.
  2. A strong Military is vital for protecting National Interests and
esteem.
  3. It would also give a global role for India which means we have to stay
on
     top of things if we are going to survive.  Such a doctrine was never
     adopted by any Indian Politician before and we ignorantly believe that
if
     we don't take a Global role the world would leave us alone.  If we
don't
     think about ourselves the World will tell us how to think -
ideological
     hegemony is abound.  A global role would only make India more
responsible.

    I appreciate the exchange between and I enjoy it very much.

Sincerely,
Vamsi M.


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