<story><title>The Soviet Union’s Nuclear Icebreakers</title><url>https://asianometry.substack.com/p/the-soviet-unions-nuclear-icebreakers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sudobash1</author><text>&amp;gt; The debate went back and forth. But in the end, the Congressmen basically admitted that the only reason they wanted the US to build such a machine would be because the Soviets had one too.&lt;p&gt;I want to see when that admission was made, and how someone got them to admit it. It was the most surprising part of the article for me.&lt;p&gt;Wouldn&amp;#x27;t it be great to see more defense spending introspection and honesty.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethagknight</author><text>Its reasonable to build something that your competitor has, for which you have no use for today, but may need ASAP tomorrow for unforeseen reasons. In the case of a nuclear icebreaker, it may be rescuing stranded covert operatives or getting a certain ship with certain capabilities to a certain location.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Soviet Union’s Nuclear Icebreakers</title><url>https://asianometry.substack.com/p/the-soviet-unions-nuclear-icebreakers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sudobash1</author><text>&amp;gt; The debate went back and forth. But in the end, the Congressmen basically admitted that the only reason they wanted the US to build such a machine would be because the Soviets had one too.&lt;p&gt;I want to see when that admission was made, and how someone got them to admit it. It was the most surprising part of the article for me.&lt;p&gt;Wouldn&amp;#x27;t it be great to see more defense spending introspection and honesty.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pvg</author><text>Parity with and superiority to the Soviet Union was an overt part of US policy-making for decades. What&amp;#x27;s changed is that it&amp;#x27;s somewhat less overt now for various reasons one of them being the there&amp;#x27;s less of an explicit ideological conflict between the US&amp;#x2F;allies and its adversaries.</text></comment>