Re: the Cold War

On Nov 8, 2010, at 4:55 AM, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

> Jon Louis Mann wrote:
>>
>>> ...and judging by GDP figures, the USA is still fighting the Cold  
>>> War.
>>
>> There never was a "Cold" War beginning with the Korean War WW III
>> was a global conflict against Communism in Latin America, The
>> Carribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.  In fact
>> the US has been in a state of war under other names for most of our
>> history.  WW IV is called the war on terror, and is also global in  
>> scope.
>> Jon Mann
>>
> No, the conflicts above mentioned justify the "War" term,
> the "Cold" is necessary because there was no actual USA x CCCP
> direct conflict, with americans and soviets killing each other
> in great numbers.
>
> Alberto Monteiro

Depends on your definition of "great numbers".  There was extensive  
Soviet involvement in the Vietnam War, including significant numbers  
of Soviet pilots flying MiG-21's out of North Vietnam.  Sort of like  
USA flight crews operating VNAF aircraft in the early years of the  
war, before we dropped the pretense and started flying under USAF  
colors.  Most of this wasn't much talked about until long after the  
fall of Saigon.

(The US pilots, mostly Navy, had noticed a rather wide distribution of  
pilot skill levels among the MiG pilots they engaged -- most were  
relatively unskilled and were a threat mostly due to their large  
numbers, but a few were clearly highly skilled and very experienced in  
air combat maneuvers.  There was a lot of speculation on this until it  
was revealed much later that these were in fact USA/USSR dogfights.)

Heard from a flight instructor:
"The only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask, resulting in my  
going out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of  
torn and twisted metal."