ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP (02/09/87)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, February 8, 1987 11:58PM
Volume 7, Issue 102
Today's Topics:
SDI in fixed orbits
"America" and Hitler (two separate topics)
Star Wars as Bad
epilog on the Tau Ceti Initiative
Economics of SDI (Request)
Re: I'm Warning You!
The economics of SDI
Economics of SDI (and other military expenditures)
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Date: Tue, 3 Feb 87 15:57:57 cst
From: convex!paulk@a.cs.uiuc.edu (Paul Kalapathy)
Subject: SDI in fixed orbits
> From: David Sher <sher@rochester.arpa>
>
> Why would an SDI be limited to fixed orbits? How much would having
> SDI platforms capable of periodically and randomly changing orbits
> cost over a fixed orbit system and would such a system foil very many
> counter measures?
SDI platforms would almost certainly be constrained to fixed orbits
because:
1) It is very costly (in terms of propellant) to change the orbit
of a satellite. Remember that a spacecraft must carry, from launch, all
of the propellant that it will use in its entire life. An orbit change
corresponds to a (vectored) velocity change. Each velocity change (delta v)
requires some mass of propellant. A major orbit change would require
an amount of propellant well in excess of one percent of the mass of the
spacecraft. Now, a satellite with a lifetime of ten years will be in
operation for about 3600 days. This doesn't allow for very frequent
orbit changes.
2) The constellation of SDI platforms could not move in a random
fashion and maintain their relationships with one another. These relationships
need to be maintained in order to be certain that enough platforms
will be in view of any missile launch. Also, battle management and
communications would be grossly complicated by a changing constellation.
3) Changing orbits would probably not foil any countermeasures. Even
a satellite which is thrusting is constrained by orbital mechanics and
could be tracked easily. Space mines could potentially be foiled by this
tactic, but whoever put up the mines would know that the SDI moves around
and would certainly make their space mines tag along.
The above simplifies some points, but is still valid. Exploring all of the
intricacies of this point would require pages of useless pontification on
my part :-)
-Paul Kalapathy
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1987 17:26 EST
From: Rob Austein <SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: "America" and Hitler (two separate topics)
Re: "America" as a term for the USA.
What's the fuss? Call the country "the USA" and the inhabitants
"Yankees". "Yankee" may annoy some soreheads in the South, but it's
what English speaking people in Europe call us anyway (I have heard it
used by the British and by Canadian Air Force personnel stationed in
Germany).
Re: Hitler.
Somebody recently said that Hitler's foreign policy was disorganized
and/or random. Not so. Followed very twisted logic, that's all. For
those who are interested, I highly recomend "Hitler's Weltanschauung"
by Eberhard Jackel (available from Harvard University Press, Cambridge
MA & London UK, under the title "Hitler's World View").
(Those who read this list regularly will recognize this as my annual
plug for this book. I am very scared by the number of educated people
who mistakenly believe that they understand Hitler and the Third Reich
(which is not to say that I do, but most people I know are even more
ignorant than me). Don't think it can't happen here.)
Oh, and keep in mind that -everybody- in that part of Europe had a
non-agression pact with Hitler in the late 30s. Including Poland, for
all the good it did them. It was the "obvious" thing to do with a
neighbor that had gone from disarmed bankruptcy to preeminant military
power in six years.
--Rob Austein <SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 16:39:19 pst
From: pyramid!utzoo!henry@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Star Wars as Bad
> The high-speed projectile (smart rock) would be capable of accurately
> delivering meteorite-like energy on the ground....
If it's capable of surviving the passage through the atmosphere, which is
not automatically the case for a system built for in-space use.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 01:37:11 pst
From: pyramid!utzoo!henry@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: epilog on the Tau Ceti Initiative
Thought this might be of interest... The latest issue of Space World has
an interview with Robert Forward, in which he mentions a proposal that he
and some folks from Rand, JPL, Los Alamos, and the USAF Rocket Propulsion
Lab made to SDIO to make antimatter-based space propulsion real. Given
ample funding but not a crash program, it would take about 30 years. The
first ten years gets you all the basic technology. The next ten years
builds a big, specialized accelerator, useful for physics research but
mainly aimed at making enough antimatter to test-fire a full-scale rocket
engine. The last ten years builds an antimatter factory on the same scale
as the Hanford uranium-enrichment complex, which makes enough antimatter
to fuel a large, active space program. This was not a high-risk proposal,
just a big and rather long-term one. SDIO decided it was too long-term
for them, but the potential remains. "If we don't do anything, then all
the people who say that antimatter is foolish and will never come to
fruition are correct. Because if we don't do anything, of course nothing
will happen and it will take 50 years or 100 years before we have it. But
if we *do* something, then we can get it done in 30 years."
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 23:28:28 pst
From: pyramid!utzoo!henry%hplabs@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Economics of SDI (Request)
Although I agree with Larry Yaffe that the economics of SDI are a major
issue, I have a modest reservation about some of his questions: they are
subtly but seriously slanted. Asking, for example, "How does this level
of money compare to the amount of federal funding for basic science ?" is
begging for an "SDI is bad" reply. If one is asking that question, one
should also ask reasonable related questions like "How does this level of
money compare to the amount of federal tobacco-farming subsidies?". (Yes,
there are federal subsidies for the #1 cause of preventable cancer.) If
one phrases questions about SDI economics as SDI versus some-obviously-
desirable-thing, one is not going to get honest answers about the economic
issues.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 23:28:37 pst
From: pyramid!utzoo!henry@hplabs.HP.COM
Subject: Re: I'm Warning You!
> The above two recent postings both make an assumption about our strategic
> situation: we must defend against a ``bolt from the blue'' attack...
> Is this a realistic assumption? What would happen to our position if we
> relaxed our perception of ``warning'' (i.e. assumed that we would have at
> least a day's worth or more of advanced warning to prepare for a Soviet
> attack?)
It depends on what one wants to do in response to an attack, and what flavor
of attack one is thinking of. In one sense a bolt-from-the-blue attack is
not very realistic, since it would take something truly drastic to make the
normal Soviet leadership "roll them big dice", and we are likely to get some
warning that something like that is happening. In another sense it is quite
realistic. If you believe that the cause of nuclear war would probably
be accident or madness or such, rather than a calculated, rational decision,
then it might well happen suddenly.
To a defence planner, the big question is whether the second type of attack
would be as large, systematic, and coordinated as the first type. If it
could be, then one really must prepare for the full bolt-from-the-blue
scenario. A type-two attack would *probably* be less organized than a
type-one attack, but *must* it be? I have a nagging feeling that the worst-
case answer is "no".
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 22:26:38 EST
From: John_Boies@ub.cc.umich.edu
re: The economics of SDI
Reply to Larry Yaffe
From: John L. Boies
Subject: The economics of SDI
The Office of Management and Budget has estimated that
a program of R & D and procurement for a BMD system with the
capabilities envisioned by President Reagan could be as much
as $500 billion dollars over a period of 10-20 years.
Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger along with
others both inside and outside the federal government have
suggested figures as high as $1 trillion dollars over a ten
or twenty year period.(G.E. Hudson and JK. Kruzel,
edit. American Defense Annual, Lexington Books, Lexington,
Mass. pg. 194) Figures such as these might sound farfetched
to some, but when you consider the staggering estimated
costs of some of the systems suggested as low technology
alternatives (or sometimes as stopgap measures to protect us
against the Russians until a truly effective BMD can be
devised) to SDI estimates for a system with all the
capabilities envisioned for Star Wars of even $2 trillion
may no longer seem unreasonable.
To get a better handle on what SDI might cost us, some
of the details of what we are spending and planning to spend
on SDI related programs is necessary. The Pentagon suggests
that they will need $33 billion between now and 1990 and
perhaps another $30 billion (or more) between 1990 and 1995
#(just to determine the feasibility of a high technology BMD
system like SDI).(Office of Technology Assessment, Strategic
Defenses, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey,
pg. 293) In addition to the $33 billion budget to research
and demonstrate SDI technologies to be spent through the
DOD, the Department of Energy will likely be in line to
receive $2 billion over the next five years for BMD
research. The existing ASAT program, which concerns many
technologies directly relevant to SDI as well as less
technologically sophisticated BMD systems, will absorb $4
billion over the five years. (Office of Technology
Assessment, Strategic Defenses, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey, pg. 292-3) No source I have found
has as yet discussed additions to be made to the NASA
budget, to the NSA budget, and to the budgets of other
programs that either support the SDI program or will
contribute to the research effort in other ways (such as by
researching related technologies, e.g. the VLSIC program, or
the Naval and Air Force directed energy weapons research),
but it is likely this would add more billions to the basic
research costs of Star Wars. Thus, even if SDI is not
technologically possible, our government (either you and me
or the deficit) will have shelled out over $60 billion
dollars!!
0 It is important to realize, however, that the push for
SDI is not just an attempt to promote research on an
interesting group of technologies that may or may not be
used. Quite the contrary, the current interest in SDI is
part of a long term and strong interest on the part of the
Air Force, Army, and other parts of our military and
government in having a BMD system. For example, between the
signing of the ABM treaty in 1973 and 1985 the U.S. has
spent $4.268 billion directly on BMD programs (A. Carter and
D. Schwartz, Edit. Ballistic Missile Defense, The Brookings
Institute, Wa. D.C., pg.344) plus another $3.175 billion on
directed energy research (Lasers, particle beams,
etc.)(J. Hecht, Beam Weapons, The Next Arms Race, Plenum
Press, New York, pg. 353). Moreover, the defense contractors
that are likely to build any future BMD system are the very
same contractors that are currently receiving the contracts
to research the feasibility of a BMD system. Consequently,
regardless of the outcome of the SDI research program, it is
likely that there will be pressure to procure some kind of
BMD system.
0 To put the potential price tag of SDI or any other
related BMD system in some kind of perspective I will now
briefly describe the estimated costs of two ABM systems
using considerably simpler technologies than are likely to
be developed from the SDI research. The simplest of all
proposed "active" systems is a "pop-up" terminal defense
system deployed close to the targets of the incoming
warheads. This system, in its current form called LoADS (Low
Altitude Terminal Defense System), would consist of large
numbers small high acceleration nuclear tipped radar or
infra-red guided missiles. The LoADS system is largely a
somewhat more advanced and compact version of the old Sprint
ABM system designed during the late sixties. In addition to
a large phased-array early warning radar tracking system,
LoADS requires a small phased-array tracking radar for each
ABM (or perhaps for every few ABMs). The DOD gives a rock
bottom minimum price tag 21.5 million dollars for each
interceptor deployed.(R. Starsman, Ballistic Missile
Defense and Deceptive Basing: A New Calculus for the
Defense of ICBMs, National Defense University Press,
Wa. D.C. p. 28) Thus, for a system allowing 1000 shots
against incoming RVs, the cost would be $25-30 billion
including R & D. While this may seem like a large number of
interceptors, (and thus likely to make an effective shield
against incoming warheads) The D.O.D. suggests that if the
Soviets were unconstrained by SALT II, they might deploy as
many as 14,000 warheads capable of striking hard point
targets by 1990-1995. Even if the LoADS interceptors had a
100% kill probability, the U.S. could spend $300 billion
dollars and the Russians could still count on 3-4,000 of
their warheads striking the U.S.'s missile silos.
0 A more technologically complex and potentially more
effective BMD system that has been suggested to fill the gap
until a better ABM system can be developed is the "High
Frontier" system proposed by Gen. Daniel O. Graham, Ret.
The space based component of this system would consist of
space planes, 432 defensive satellites employing kinetic
kill weapons similar to the infrared-guided Miniature
Vehicle ASAT weapon being developed by the Air Force, and a
sizeable space station. This system would supposedly
destroy enemy ballistic missiles while they were in their
boost phase, when they are most vulnerable to interception.
While Graham estimates that the total cost of this part of
the system would be only 10 to 15 billion dollars, the DOD
figured that acquisition costs of this system alone might
run between 200 and 300 billion dollars(Office of Technology
Assessment, Strategic Defenses, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey, pg. 294). For this 200 billion or so
dollars we would get a system that according to Ashton
Carter of Harvard University would be "...a defensive system
of extremely limited capability for boost phase intercept of
present Soviet ICBMs and with no capability against future
MX like Soviet boosters, even with no Soviet effort to
overcome the defense." (Office of
Technology Assessment, Strategic Defenses, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, pg. 295) Moreover,
the OTA found very little of the "High Frontier's" off-the-
shelf technologies on anyone's shelves.
0 The cost of Star Wars are certain to be staggering.
Regardless of the outcome the SDI research, the U.S. will
spend over 60 billion dollars over the next ten years. Even
if the D.O.D. decides to deploy only a relatively
inexpensive low tech BMD system such as LoADS, by the the
year 2000 we will spend the $60 billion for the SDI research
plus a minimum of $30 billion for a thin LoADS defense (only
capable of destroying about 10% of incoming warheads) or as
much as $300 to $600 billion for a thick LoADS (potentially
capable of intercepting 10,000 warheads) defense with a
single space based layer like the "High Frontier" system
with a marginal capability to intercept ICBMs during their
boost phases (only with luck will it be able to intercept
SLBMs). Considering the estimated costs of these relatively
primitive and inexpensive systems, the seemingly outrageous
figure of a trillion dollars for the full blown high tech
three or four layer Star Wars system no longer seems
outrageous. In fact, maybe the estimate of a trillion
dollars, rather than being a very high estimate of the costs
of a BMD system with the capabilities envisioned by
President Reagan, is actually a low estimate of the costs
involved with such a program.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 87 23:01:22 EST
From: John_Boies@ub.cc.umich.edu
Subject: Economics of SDI (and other military expenditures)
There are four adverse economic effects of high levels
of defense spending that I will discuss here. These
are:
1) Shifts in government spending;
2) Distortions in the labor market;
3) Redistribution of income from the working class and
poor to the well off; and
4) Reduction in economic growth.
The most well known and obvious economic repurcussions
of military expenditures is the reduction in domestic
spending required once military expenditures reach a high
enough level that available federal moneys can not pay for
both domestic expenditures and military expenditures. While
deficit spending can (and has) provide additional revenue to
support spending on both the military and social programs,
at some point even that source of revenue must run dry.
The magnitude of the shifts in the federal budget
priorities that SDI would make necessary are staggering.
Just the basic research program would pay for the entire
food stamp program for ten years, the school lunch program
for 15 years, or medical research programs for 15
years.(B.J. Page, Who Gets What From Government, U.C. Press,
Berkeley, pg. 64) The expenditures that would be
necessary for a full scale SDI system as envisioned by
President Reagan were to be deployed the costs would support
100 years of funding federal education programs at the 1980
level, 50 years of funding federal transportation programs,
20 years of healthcare expenditures, and 10 years of social
security outlays (A. Hacker, Edit., US A Statistical
Portrait of the American People, Viking Press, N.Y., pg 167-
194). The basic question that these comparisons bring to
mind is: What are we as a society, as a nation, willing to
do without so we can have SDI? Do we want to let Social
Security go bankrupt? Do we want to cut out health care
spending, or food stamps, school lunches?
A second consequence of SDI spending is that investment
in technically complex weapons systems such as BMD creates
fewer jobs than most any other type of investment a government or
business can make. For example, a billion dollars (in 1981
dollars) invested in educational services results in the
creation of 72,000 jobs, in shipbuilding and repair it would
create 33,000 jobs, rapid transit 48,000 jobs, and in
military procurement 28,000 jobs. If we just rebated a
billion dollars worth of tax monies 60,000 jobs would be
created (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Economic Report to the
President, Feb. 1983, U.S. GPO, Wa., D.C. pg. 166-67). The
stimulus to the economy resulting from military expenditures
is far lower than most every other kind of investment except
investment in petroleum refining. Moreover, the kind of
jobs created by high tech investment like SDI creates a
small number of high paying jobs for well educated middle
class professional (e.g. engineers, managers) and a larger number of
very low paying jobs in the service industries to provide
food, health, and entertainment services to these
people. SDI is just one more step down the road towards a
nation of middle class professionals and lower class burger-
flippers.
Expenditures of the type and magnitude of required by SDI
are also likely to severely disrupt the existing labor
markets for technical professionals. For example, SDI will
require as much as 81,000 person-years of programming to
develop and install the software to run the SDI computers
(Lin, Scientific American, Dec. 1985). In 1982 over 50% of
civilian firms reported shortages of personnel in fields of
computer science and electronic engineering (U.S. National
Science Foundation, "Labor Markets for New Science and
Engineer Graduates", Science Resources Highlights, June 9,
1982, Chart 2). The large increase in demand resulting from
the SDI program will likely boost the price of labor in
these as well as other technical fields dramatically,
especially considering that the military has historically
paid significantly above average market rates for technical
personnel (J.S. Gansler, The Defense Industry, MIT Press,
Cambridge, Mass. pg. 51). Since many businesses are
dependent on computers in the U.S. the price of doing
business in our high tech society could go up considerably
while the price of doing business in other nations will
remain the same. In other industrial sectors such as
communications and chemicals the story is quite similar to
what will happen in the computer software and hardware
industries.
One of the most frightening economic consequences of
SDI is that it will undoubtedly redistribute income in our
society from the poor and working class to the well off.
Some of the ways SDI will bring this about include:
1) Less money will be spent on social welfare and other
domestic programs that serve to redistribute money
from the better off to the less well off.
2) There will be fewer jobs created then if the money
were spent elsewhere, and most the of jobs created
will be the lowest paying jobs in American society
(with the exception of farm labor), retail service
and similar jobs.
3) The vast majority (85-90%) of the money spent on
SDI will go directly to some of the largest defense
contractors in the U.S.--Boeing, TRW, AVCO,
Lockheed, North American Rockwell, Hughes
Aerospace, Aerojet General. Not only are these
contractors guaranteed a rather large profit from
these contracts, but they are among the firms in
this country that pay the least amount of taxes to
federal, state, or local governments. Ultimately,
the profits from these contracts will flow to the
wealthy and powerful that own these firms, people
that already own much of the wealth in our nation.
The last consequence of SDI that I want to address here
is that it is likely to reduce the United States ability to
compete economically with other nations. This problem stems
from the reduction in resources put towards civilian R & D,
e.g. product development basic research, production
innovation, resulting from high levels of military R & D
expenditures. In 1983 the U.S. government spent $52
billion on R & D, $35 billion of that was for military R &
D(R. W. DeGrasse, Jr., Military Expansion Economic Decline,
M.E. Sharpe, Inc., Armonk, N.Y. pg. 102) . In addition to
the fact that the civilian economy could certainly have used
some of that research money, military research requires
large amounts of trained personnel, experimental equipment,
and expensive research facilities that are certainly not in
unlimited supply. Military research creates a sort of brain
drain away form the civilian economy resulting in higher
prices for research and lower quality research. Moreover,
since the research programs are centrally controlled by the
federal government, the kinds of research that can be
undertaken is considerably more narrow (and much less widely
disseminated because of security precautions) than if the
research money could be spent on research subjects
determined independently by thousands of universities,
business, and thinktanks.
The end result of spending large amounts of money on
the military, especially on military research and
development is to reduce the ability of a nation to
economically compete with other nations by reducing the
amount of resources committed to basic building blocks of a
capitalist economy, product and production innovation.
Without the development of new products or new production
techniques a nation's economy will sooner or later fail to
keep pace with those economies that are devoting resources
to these areas. A 1983 study of 17 industrialized nations
by the Council on Economic Priorities found that there is a
"...negative relationship between the share of GDP [Gross
Domestic Product] spent on military R & D and the rate of
productivity growth among major industrial
nations." (pg. 157) Additionally, the Council concluded:
If the economic benefits of military research and
procurement outweighed the costs, we would expect that
American firms in industries closely allied with the
military would have maintained or expanded their overall
market shares. But the contrary is true in the
electronics and machine too industries. The Japanese
have significantly penetrated markets for electronic
memory chips and computer controlled machine tools.
America's dominance in the commercial airline market is
being challenged by Airbus Industrie, a European
consortium. (pg. 157)
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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