Since Europe is dependent on imports of energy and most of its raw materials, it can be subdued, if not quite conquered, without all those nuclear weapons the Soviets have aimed at it simply through the shipping routes and raw materials they control. ↗
Remember, we know the end of the story of World War II and the Cold War. But day by day, living in fear of the Nazis and then in fear of the Soviets, the outcome was by no means certain. ↗
In the years just before... during the Carter years, the Soviets regularly violated, if you will, both the spirit and theletter of arms control agreements, I think, that they had negotiated during the period of detente. ↗
Just as the Russians and the Soviets didn't manage to wipe out languages in Lithuania, neither have they managed to wipe out religion to the extent that we had feared. ↗
As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors - the Soviets and, before them, the British. ↗
I thought that in general we in the United States were too optimistic in believing that the Soviets might alter what had been for a long time, as a matter of fact for centuries, fundamental Russian policies in respect to the rest of the world. ↗
Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out. ↗