blk (12/14/82)
In the hope of preventing hysterical reaction, i want to first state that i am firmly opposed to nuclear proliferation, and painfully aware of the threat our present arsenal is to continued life on Earth. But how can anyone call MX a first strike weapon? I have listened carefully each time i have heard the phrase, but so far have never heard any context except buzzwords and propaganda. I just saw it on the net again, and i can't stand it. Doesn't everyone know that the USSR also has a triad? Even if a hundred (huge) missiles could manage to wipe out all land-based missiles, the subs and planes can still kill us off (last i heard) about 50 times over. Could be that no one understands what 'first strike' means, but i doubt it. I am opposed to lies and scare tactics, whether coming from hawks *or* doves! What's going on? -brian
clif (12/16/82)
Summary of Brians letter "I am opposed to nuclear porliferation, but how can anyone call MX a first strike weapon? ... Doesn't everyone know that the USSR also has a triad? Even if a hundred (huge) missiles could manage to wipe out all land-based missiles, the subs and planes can still kill us off about 50 times over." Brian, I am sorry if I took your remarks out of context but I want to answer your questions. How is the MX a first strike weapon? A reasonable question. I'll attempt to show why the MX is a very dangerous and destablizing weapon. Most of my information comes from an excellent issue of "Spectrum" (Oct 1982) which deals almost exclusively with the issues of Technology in weapons, I urge everyone in net land to read it. "The bulletin of the Atomic Scientist" also has good technical info on nuclear issues. The USSR far from having a Triad consisting of equal number of warheads deliverable by Subs, Bombers and land-based ICBM, is heavily skewed in favor of ICBMs. The Russians have 1400 ICBMs, 1030 SLBMs , and 160 Bombers with Intercontinenal range. The USSR ICBM's have over 75% of the warheads and probably 90% of the throwweight. The Russian Bison bombers are turbo-prop aircraft which make our B-52 look like something out of star-wars, and their Supersonic Backfire bombers have limited range and would be no match for our F15 interceptors. Thus we can write off the the bomber leg of the Triad. (Although maybe one or two planes could reach a target a la "Dr. Strangelove") The USSR ballistic subs are not in much better shape. Since 85% of the Russian subs are in port where they would be demolished by a USA first strike. The remaining 15% subs are considerably noiser the US subs and would be much more vunerable to destruction then their US counterparts. If the US was very lucky it might be able to destroy all but 2 or 3 of the 10-12 Russian subs at sea. (of course a couple Russian sub could cause 20 million casualties, hopefully including the turkeys in Washington D.C. who allowed the lunatic arms race to continue.) Thus the USSR really only has one viable leg of the triad, their ICBMs. The Russians have two sizes of warheads Big (1 megaton) and huge (10-20 megatons) both are probably sufficiently accurate to take out the Minuteman missile silos, but they are even more effective against cities. Presently, the Soviet missiles are only vunerable to the 550 Minuteman II with 3 MIRVed warheads each and a CEP of about .2- .3km (CEP stands for Circular Error Probability which is the distance from the target where 50% of the warheads will fall. Close counts in Nuclear war because the destructiveness of a warhead against a hard target is inversely related to a 3rd or 4th power polyinomial. (i.e. a 1 megaton bomb which falls within 200 meters of a silo is about as effective of destroying it, as a 10 megaton bomb which lands 400 meters away.) The 53 Titan missiles also could be consider first strike weapon but they are so old their not much of a threat. Thus our present missile force could take out about 825 ICBMs (550 missiles * 3 warheads each / 2 warheads per Russian missile.) (Strategic Planners like "valley girls who take two birth control pills, want to be fer sure, fer sure") What does all of this have do with the MX? "Well" (as RR says) lets introduce the MX into our US first strike scenario. The MX has 10 warheads of about 150-200 kilotons each and a CEP of .1km (according to Aviation Space Technology Weekly). Thus the 100 MX missiles could take out 500 Russian ICBM + the 825 from the Minuteman missiles = 1325 which doesn't leave a lot left for the Russians to retaliate with. If you add to this force the Trident II missile which is rumored to have a CEP of 10meters (ya thats right about 10 yards) and the Russians are in real trouble. Dr Gray a consultant to that well know dove :) Alex Haig said this in Spectrum. "The 100 MX missiles ..., armed with 1000 warheads, would be more then adequate for a decapitation strike against 75 -100 Soviet Command bunkers and associate 3C's installations, while the Trident II missile force, which is ultimately to include at least 288 missiles with 2880 warheads, would be sufficient to target all Soviet missile silos with two warheads apiece." (an aside the 2880 warheads represent only 12 trident subs which we should have by 1987 or 88). This frees up all of our Minuteman missile and Posiedan missiles to knock out Russia bases and cities. and leaves the Russians possible only 2 subs to retaliate against us. Some people might wonder what is so bad about knocking out all of the USSR's missiles. (I read a survey in Pyschology Today of UCLA freshman students where something like 40% thought it would be O.K. to attack Russia if we knew they couldn't strike back , preety scary huh?) Aside from the obvious humanitary problems of first striking, There are military reasons why this threat to destroy the Russian missiles is a dumb idea. The Russian aren't stupid enough to watch their missiles being destroyed if they can help it. They will probably adopt a "Launch on Warning" LOW policy. Which means that as soon as the Russians see incoming ICBM's they would launch theirs. Which brings me (finally) to the point of this tirade. THE MX IS A FIRST STRIKE WEAPON BECAUSE IT CAN KNOCK A LOT OF SOVIET MISSILES. SINCE THE ICBM ARE THE MAIN PART OF THE SOVIET NUCLEAR ARSENAL. THIS COULD FORCE THE RUSSIANS TO ADOPT A VERY DANGEROUS, (to mankind) POLICY OF LAUNCH ON WARNING. LAUNCH ON WARNING IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT DEPENDS ON COMPUTERS AND TRACKING INSTRUMENTS AND REDUCES THE DECISION TIME. I welcome all reasonable comments to be either posted to net.politics or sent to me. Next, I will talk (flame?) about why a US first strike is as plausible as a Russian first strike. Not afraid to thank the House for doing the right thing Clif Purkiser ucbvax!amd70!clif decwrl!amd70!clif
renner (12/16/82)
#R:sytek:-26300:uiucdcs:29200008:000:787
uiucdcs!renner Dec 16 11:06:00 1982
Each MX missile carries 10 independently-targeted, very accurate,
relatively low yield warheads. These are suitable for taking out hardened
military targets, such as missile silos. The MX missile therefore poses a
threat to Russian land-based missiles which submarines & bombers do not
(insufficient accuracy and long warning time, respectively).
Furthermore, because the MX is to be land-based, it cannot realistically
be called a second-strike weapon. Even considering the dense-pack basing mode,
very few of these missiles will be useable after a Russian first strike.
If the United States is interested in building a defensive nuclear
capability, then it makes more sense to invest in ballistic-missile submarines.
These can truly be called second-strike weapons.