Why is Afghanistan important to our strategic nuclear relationship with the Soviet Union?
It’s on the Soviet border. Why does it make any difference to our national security whether they control Afghanistan? PN – Military security is not all that makes a difference to us. It was a totally improper invasion. We care about the Charter of the United Nations. We care about its principles. Therefore, it does make a difference to us. NPQ – NSC-68 was the first policy document that incorporated Keynesian thinking into defense matters. It argued that we could finance a military buildup to fight global communism through deficit spending, thus generating additional economic activity, more tax revenues, and, eventually, returning the budget to balance. Leon Keyserling, the Chairman of Truman’s Council of Economic Advisers during the period of NSC-68, recently made a relevant observation in a conversation we had with him. He said the problem with fighting the Cold War through deficit spending was that it is a “demonstrative war” – a war that does not actually involve direct fighting be
