davidl@tekig.UUCP (David Levadie) (11/30/83)
Sometime just after the turn of the century there was an explosion amounting to the equivalent of several megatons of TNT a few thousand feet in the air over northern Siberia. The origin of this explosion is still the subject of debate, but it was evidently of extraterrestrial origin. Do the luminaries we have managing the arms race on either side have any way of differentiating such an event from "the real thing?" (If you're curious about the event, there's a book out called "The Fire Came By", by somebody or other. The Russians have spent plenty of time digging around up there.)
preece@uicsl.UUCP (12/03/83)
#R:tekig:-166800:uicsl:16300039:000:507 uicsl!preece Dec 2 12:14:00 1983 One would hope that the Soviets could tell the difference between a meteor and an ICBM by radar signature and trajectory. One would hope they wouldn't respond comprehensively to a single incoming object. In light of KAL 007, though, I think those might be optimistic assumptions. The one unanswerable problem with MAD is that it creates a situation where there is very little room for human or mechanical error or for such 'accidents' as extraterrestrial debris. scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece
rigney@uokvax.UUCP (12/05/83)
#R:tekig:-166800:uokvax:5000034:000:1377 uokvax!rigney Dec 3 10:02:00 1983 The most probable cause of the Tunguska incident was a strike by a small comet. Yes, our radars are good enough to tell the difference between a comet and a missile. By the way, there seems to be a general thought that if war is more likely to occur by accident or mishap than deliberately, i.e. one side launches a missile unintentionally, and the other side retaliates with a full scale attack, causing the first side to launch all its forces. Doesn't this strike anyone as pretty farfetched? If just one (or a few) missiles were spotted incoming, they couldn't possibly have any major effect on the retaliatory capability, so there's no immediate need to launch a counterstrike. Forces would be placed on full alert, of course, but until many more tracks were spotted, or the first missiles hit without any word from the other side, there seems to be no reason to strike back. And I assume that if a missile were launched accidentally (although I can't imagine how the launch codes got from the football to the missile, or whatever the Russian equivalent is), both sides would be on the hotline very fast, to clear it up. Does anyone know if the Pershing II's have the accuracy and size to be effective against silos, and what percentage of the Soviet missiles they can destroy? Or is all this talk about Soviet fears just rhetoric? Carl ..!ctvax!uokvax!rigney