dcn@ihuxl.UUCP (Dave Newkirk) (11/29/83)
Deterrence only works as long as our weapons are as good as theirs. If we suddenly stop working on ours without a similar halt on Soviet research, our defence will slowly erode away. This is also the reason we maintain a larger number of weapons than expected: we must be able to reply to a first strike which knocks out many of our missiles, or the other side might consider doing just that! If we can not come to an agreement with the USSR to halt development of new nuclear weapons and reduce the existing stockpile (and it doesn't look too likely), we can try a different defence. A simple satellite network carrying cheap interceptor rockets could greatly reduce the number of missiles that get through. More advanced systems could decrease that number even further. This can be destabilizing, but it may be the only way out of the MAD plan. Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn P.S. Whatever happened to "Give me liberty or give me death!" (:-)
smeier@ihuxt.UUCP (11/30/83)
On the subject of a simple satelite system carrying cheap interceptor Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il Lines: 20 rockets to reduce the number of missiles that get through: destabilizing? you bet! Would a nation as paranoid as the USSR, which shoots down civilian passenger planes, just sit there and let the USA put up a system that renders their nuclear arsenal ineffective? No, they would build anti-satelite weapons to shoot it down, they would build *more* missiles to assure that enough would get through, and they would have to build their own defensive system, forcing us to have more nukes so that they couldn't launch a first strike and knock out our retaliatory strike. So the net effect would be to escalate the arms race, and increase the risk of war. Unless, of course, we could have an agreement with the USSR that we would both have a defensive system without taking steps to counter them. But this means we would have to trust eachother anyway, so we might as well just agree on arms reduction in the first place. Steve Meier ihnp4!ihuxt!smeier
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/04/83)
There is a fairly simple way to eliminate much of the destabilizing effect of workable anti-missile defences, with the additional bonus of solving the problem of where the funding comes from. Pay for the defense systems by scrapping 95% of the offensive nuclear arsenal. The defensive systems will not become operational instantaneously, but over a lengthy period; the same period can be used for gradually scrapping offensive weapons. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry