wilson@intelod.UUCP (08/22/84)
[Excerpted from Arms-Discussion Digest, volume 2 : issue 52] > -All delivery systems for nuclear weapons are now obsolete. All >that is necessary for any nation to achieve nuclear deterrence (or >nuclear blackmail) is the capacity to detonate 100 megatons of devices >on its own soil. A site may be chosen for this doomsday weaponry where >prevailing winds would carry the light-blocking dust over other >nations first, but this would not affect the outcome. Like skinny ties, short skirts and British pop groups, this is an idea popular in the early '60s that's been dusted off, given some new twists, and is now being sold to the public as New Wave. Back then, it was called the Doomsday Machine (hereafter abbreviated DM). Let's review the history of the DM; ask why it wasn't built in the past; and try to assess its prospects for the future. The '60s version of the DM was based on that era's great nuclear nightmare, fallout. In principle, construction would be quite simple: build a very large bomb, sheathe it in cobalt, and bury it under a mountain. For good measure, one could store lots of high-level nuclear wastes on this site as well. Such a DM would be safe against attack by anything except an equally large bomb, and exploding such a bomb at the DM site would have the desired effect, anyway. Exploding a few such devices would place such large quantities of long-lived isotopes into the atmosphere that humanity would be finished. Civil defense would be useless, unless you were prepared to dig in for the next 10 or 20 thousand years. [In comparing the '60s and '80s versions of the DM, one is reminded of Djikstra's remark that Algol-60 was a great improvement over nearly all of its successors. Nuclear fallout is demonstrably real; all of us are carrying around radioisotopes in our bodies courtesy of open-air testing. Nuclear winter ("fallup"?) is an interesting hypothesis based on computer modeling; for obvious reasons, no demonstration of it is possible.] If it's been known for some time how to build a DM of one form or another, why haven't we, or the Soviets, or the other nuclear powers already done so? Why have we spent billions on missiles, subs and bombers? The answer, I feel, is that the efficacy of a DM as a deterrent depends upon belief in the *ability* and *willingness* of its possessor to use it. Both of which are subject to serious questions. Would a US President (or whoever was left in charge after a first strike) really destroy all surviving Americans, along with a few billion innocent bystanders, to avenge a fait accompli? The only way I can see to convince a potential aggressor that we really, truly would *use* a DM would be to adopt a "hair-trigger," fire-on-warning strategy, thus effectively limiting the life expectancy of the human race to the MTBF of our early-warning hardware and software. I doubt that anyone would consider this a good idea. There are other difficulties besides convincing enemies that a DM would be used. The risks of accidental detonation, subversion of command and control by crazed local commanders (e.g. "Dr. Strangelove"), terrorist action, etc., are bad enough for other forms of nuclear weapons. For a DM, such possibilities would be intolerable. Quoting again from the original posting: > -Unilateral (or bilateral or multilateral) disarmament to this >minimum number of devices for a nuclear winter doomsday is finally a >strategic reality rather than wishful thinking. The author must have a peculiar concept of "disarmament" if he is seriously proposing replacing weapons of mass destruction, e.g. nuclear missiles, with weapons of planetary destruction, e.g. doomsday machines. All we have here is yet another case of wishful thinking; in this case, that a currently fashionable hypothesis can somehow be leveraged into a cheap and easy solution to the arms race. Sorry. Doomsday machines have a past, but, if we're lucky, they have no future. Andy Wilson Intel Corp., Hillsboro, OR ..tektronix!ogcvax!inteloa {The above opinions -- need I say? -- are my own, not those of my employer.}
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (08/22/84)
True, no one in his right mind would seriously propose building a 1960's-
style Doomsday Machine, and for all the reasons you named. There is,
however, one crucial difference between a classical DM and its modern
nuclear winter analogue: if the nuclear winter theory is correct, then no
one need propose building a DM; we have already done so inadvertently. The
recognition that we are already sitting on a perfectly functional Doomsday
Machine leaves us with two questions: (1) why do we need to spend more
money on additional weapons systems when we already have the ultimate
weapon, and (2) what, if anything, can we do to disarm it or at least
forestall its use?
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle