From: bavafa@netcom.com (Hooshyar Naraghi)
Subject: The Merits of a Leader of 70's
Organization: Department of Detterence
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 09:43:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.190959.29350@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com> javad@hplabsz.hpl.hp.
com (Agha Javad) writes:

[discussion re: Iranian military might and its reasons deleted - HFN]

Hi AghA javAd!  I have only decided to share another view on the subject
of military machinery of Iran during Shah to offer an angle that I have
not read recently at SCI.  I have been attracted to the subject as a result
of seeing that every contributor has stated her/his views and the tone of
the exchange is so far characterized by that of a civilized and informative
one.

You and my friend Ben have illustrated the military power that Shah had
built parallel to similar line ups that Iran's neighbours had drawn at the
time (70's).  In this context various reasons are offered.  I suggest 
studying a book called "Cosmos" by no celebrity physicist but Carl Sagan.
In chapter 13 (which by the way is the concluding chapter) titled "Who
Speaks for Earth" he offered a new view regarding the military buildup of
the 70's.  He sincerely questioned the global theory of "Nuclear
Detterence" that was introduced to the world by Dr. Henry Kissinger and
was being promoted by him and his supporters during 70's.

Without going into details (but I humbly refer you to the book for a
thorough study of the case), he concluded that the school of thought of a
military power to deter its neighbouring countries (in this case USSR &
the US) was a banckrupt one that was going to doom, if not creating a
major nuclear war confrontation.  It was, he ananlyzed, based on a LIE.

The lie was that if you (the enemy) think of attacking me I (the defender)
will destroy you by my power.  You (the enemy) would go ahead increasing
and strenghtening your military buidup, so I will do the same.  The "Game
of Detterence" would at some point be prone to go out of hand, because it
would have reached to a saturated missiles buidup point that even some low-
level generals would have access to atomic warheads and their launching,
due to the abundance of such destructive weapons.  Under these conditions,
the rule of the game that stated that the leaders KNEW when to launch and
when not to launch a missile could easily be overriden by an angry general
or personnel officer.

Shah of Iran was not any exception to this game.  While the Iranian military
did not have such capability, he managed to line up an otherwise strong
army.  It is not strange that in interview with LeMonde he would argue that
among a pack of wolves one could not afford to be a sheep, but had to be
a lion.  He was living at a time when the world saw everything in form of
confrontations.  Iraq in turn played its part.  So the Persian Gulf was
indeed a "marekeh bAzi" for these two nations to play their own game of
detterence.  Until the military might fell into the hand of those who would
NOT follow the rule of the game.  They would not hesitate to utilize the
military power to state their position.  It was a full force war.  Thanks
God neither Iran nor Iraq had access to nuclear weapons.

As a side note I believe the first so called successful experiment of the
theory was during Cuban Crisis in 60's when a nuclear detterence game just
HAPPENED to work.  Historians still question what JFK would have done, had
Krushchev (?) not ordered those ships to return.  Who knows, maybe we
wouldn't be here to discuss things today!  I am not sure, but I know that
we humans just got lucky.  'khatar az bikheh gooshemoon gozasht.'  Even
JFK's ammeh wouldn't be able to guess what to do next!!

Carl Sagan truley saw these possibilities or at least began to contemplate
about them in mid 70's as a concerned citizen and scientist.  He eventually
reached the final conclusion that "leaders don't speak for Earth; military
generals don't speak for Earth.  WE speak for Earth."  Preservation of the
Earth is the duty of every citizen of this world.  He offers more, but I
would leave it to the investigator to pursue the topic in Cosmos.

Meanwhile, it was no surprize to the world community when the first news of
the USSR disintegration process reached out, Dr. Kissinger was the first one
to outloudly REJECT the idea of a disarmed Russia.  He advised both Reagan
and Bush to be careful for Russians could always come back from behind.  He
was a thinker of 70's and could not get out of his 'farsoodeh' shell.  He
played no major part in the normalization relationships between US and the
Russians as we witnessed in late 80's and now 90's.  Somethings just don't
accept change; they are doomed to be forgotten.  How funny; all of this had
to evolve in just 20 years.

I hope this view, which is really what I came to understand from Carl
Sagan's book, can be considered another angle through which we would
explain the military buildup processes that were going on during 70's in
the world specially among nations whose internal revenue could afford
participation in such deterring game.

Sorry for my too long article.  By now I hope you are used to it!!

Regards,
Hooshyar F. Naraghi
bavafa@netcom.com
(415) 322-8056

Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian