orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (04/29/85)
> From "Mad Bomber" Milo: > The important thing is stability, > which arms control treaties have not only not encouraged, but > DISCOURAGED by encouraging MIRV'ing. Its questionable whether > or not we are better off after the SALT process than before. > The increased danger due to MIRVed weapons demonstrates *not* the failure of arms control but the failure of wishy-washy arms control coupled with the "Peace thru the Arms Race" strategy. The U.S. began first tests of MIRVed weapons in 1968. The Soviet Union, seeing this weapon system as a major threat to their own land-based ICBM's requested that they be included in the SALT negotiations. Because the U.S. was ahead of the Soviets in MIRV technology Nixon and Kissinger refused to include MIRVed weapons in the SALT negotiations. Thus, as has been the pattern for 40 years, rather than controlling the next generation of weapons (except ABM's which were limited in important ways), the "arms control" of Nixon and Kissinger did not stop this important and dangerous development. Why? So we could have "Peace through the Arms Race". Did it succeed? Well, we did deploy the first MIRVed weapons in 1970 years ahead of the Soviets. BUT, the Soviets subsequently tested their own MIRVed weapons in 1973 and deployed their first MIRVed weapons in 1975. At which point the "Committee to Further the Future Danger" cried in alarm about this terrible Soviet escalation of the arms race and how it threatened our own ICBM's. Why didn't they say that five years earlier when it could have been stopped? Why did they wait until we had our own MIRVed weapons to cry out the alarm at this development? Because they believe in "Peace thru the Arms Race" and conveniently forget that there are two players (and unfortunately likely to be more in the future) in this game and attempts to gain "superiority" are futile and pointless. All we are doing is piling on ever-more weapons of mass destruction and ruining both our economies in the process. tim sevener whuxl!orb