Quote:
Originally Posted by natehale1971
Actually Tony... it was Gorby who volunteered total nuclear disarmament, but ONLY if the US abandoned SDI. And as much as Reagan hated Nuclear weapons... he didn't want to abandon the idea of SDI because to many OTHERS in the world had gotten the nuclear bomb genie to visit them.
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Nate,
By gosh, I never knew that! Apparently it was complicated; the Soviets first proposed eliminating INF weapons systems in Europe and reducing Strategic missiles by 50%, the US countered with all ballistic missiles eliminated within 10 years but retaining SDI (and sharing research), the counter-counter offer was no out-of-lab SDI research within those 10 years, and there things fell apart due to slight miscalculations on both sides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_Summit
Either way, both sides at that time seemed to accept in principle almost complete disarmament and it could have happened. In fact, such a concession could have eventually cost Gorbachev his job before he let the Iron Curtain drop, or at least tied his hands so that (say) he didn't have the latitude to let the Soviet client states go their own ways.
Regarding current technology and T2K, it mainly takes some spine on the part of the GM to make sure things are Jake and consistant. Much of what we use now was available in embryonic form in the 90's and the buildup to war would have accelerated weapons technology considerably. Most of the time the difference would be in advanced information technology and networking (not generally an issue due to battlefield attrition and EMP) and weapons/vehicles, mainly an issue of numbers. (What is generally reflected on Paul's site.)
Tony