ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (10/20/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, October 20, 1986 12:25PM
Volume 7, Issue 36
Today's Topics:
Stealth vs Boston Globe
English bases in US? (4 msgs)
Soviet SDI--Some facts, please
compromise of unintelligence
many bush wars * low probability of armageddan = we all die someday (2 msgs)
US bases in England
Subdelegation of authority to use nuclear weapons
stealth
(SDI) System effectiveness is NOT a constant! [from RISKS]
Editorial on SDI [from RISKS]
facade of democracy over fact of dictatorship
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 86 08:19:07 edt
Subject: Stealth vs Boston Globe
Martin mentions some general techniques of stealth; it is worth noting
that the application of some of these things can be a bit subtle. Things
that *increase* radar reflectivity are also a factor, applied properly.
For example, the B-1B windshield has a radar-reflective metal coating,
which the B-1A windshield lacked. Why? In the absence of that coating,
radar goes straight through the windshield, and reflects off the rear
bulkhead of the cockpit. The cockpit bulkhead is roughly at right angles
to the incoming radiation, while the windshield is sharply sloped, so it's
better to make the windshield reflective.
Martin also asks whether active countermeasures are part of stealth. There
have indeed been mumbles to that effect from official sources. Since
stealth techniques make targets harder to see, one needs less in the way
of interference to make them effectively invisible. Well, that's the theory
anyway; personally I have some doubts about anything that involves active
emissions from a stealth aircraft. If you want to see something really
ludicrous, look at USAF ideas of stealth fighters that obviously have
nose radars!
> ... Jamming is no good, as it tells the adversary something's up...
Wrong objection. Nobody has ever pretended that stealth techniques are
going to be so good that the adversary wouldn't be able to tell he was
being attacked! Confusing tracking and defensive systems is about the
best that can be hoped for. Among other reasons, long-range warning radars
tend to be long-wavelength devices, and the effectiveness of stealth
techniques falls off considerably at long wavelengths.
> Apart from the interesting physics of stealth, I'd like to know
> why this should be kept so secret or "black"? Is it a means of
> keeping up skunk worker morale, adding a James Bond spirit, or is
> there really some great novelty here ... ?
Part of it is that the US military thinks the USSR wouldn't know that
water runs downhill if they hadn't found out from the US. These days
it is fashionable to blame every similarity between US and Soviet equipment
on espionage, so everything is under wraps to prevent it happening again.
At least, that's the excuse. There is another, very potent, reason for
the deep secrecy: most of the critics of the defense establishment do
not have high-grade security clearances. And those who do can't stir
up public indignation easily if they're forbidden to discuss details.
Even Congressional supervision of programs is greatly hampered by tight
secrecy. The US military has discovered that keeping everything secret
is a dandy way to keep the critics at arm's length, and predictably they
like that idea a lot.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 86 08:19:17 edt
Subject: English bases in US?
> Are there British bases in the United States? While their existance
> seems plausible, I have never heard of any...
While I agree with the argument to some degree, it's worth noting that
England is a lot closer to the perceived threat than the US is, so there
is some geographical influence as well. There are British bases in West
Germany, even though West Germany probably has military superiority over
Britain (ignoring the nuclear aspect). There are also Canadian bases in
Germany, which most emphatically doesn't mean that Canada is more powerful
than Germany!
(Sigh... That one cuts the other way. There are, effectively, German
bases in Canada, because Canada is host to a lot of NATO training facilities.
The *embarrassing* part is that there are usually more German tanks in
Canada than there are *Canadian* tanks in Canada!)
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1986 10:28 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: U.S. bases in England (Lin)
From: Cowan
> Obviously,
> agreements to locate US military bases all over the world wouldn't
> exist unless we had a military edge over those countries.
From: lin
>So you believe that U.S. bases in England are the result of U.S.
>military superiority over the British?
From: Rick.Busdiecker at h.cs.cmu.edu
If no British bases exist on the U.S then it
seems reasonable to assume that the U.S. bases in England are, in fact,
the result of U.S. military superiority over the British.
Why? U.S. military superiority over the British is unquestionable.
But to make a causal inference from that is entirely unwarranted
unless you can argue that the U.S. somehow USED its military
superiority to COERCE the British, which was the original spirit of
Cowan's comment.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Oct 1986 12:02-EDT
From: Rick.Busdiecker@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: U.S. bases in England
[see above..]
The possibility that U.S. military superiority over the British has
resulted in there being U.S. bases in England isn't contingent on U.S.
coercion being involved. It appears that some significant portion of
the British government consider U.S. bases in England to be in the best
interests of England.
Coercion is possible, but not necessary. The original spirit of the
comment was that military superiority enables the U.S. to make
aggreements with other countries that are more favorable for it than
they would be if this superiority didn't exist. If the U.S. were on
equal footing with the British militarily, it seems unlikely that there
would be U.S. bases in England without British bases in the U.S.
Having U.S. bases in England is certainly advantageous to the U.S. in
that it improves U.S. strategic position.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1986 10:59 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: U.S. bases in England
[see above..]
You (rick) and I agree on the facts of the situation. We disagree on
the meaning of Cowan's original statement. I continue to believe that
coercion was strongly suggested by the full text of the original
message.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 86 14:58:50 EDT
From: David_S._Allan%UB-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Soviet SDI--Some facts, please
I have heard on numerous occasions that the Soviets are developing
their own SDI-type system, but I have not seen any facts to back this
claim. Since the claim is one of the main excuses put forward to justify
the SDI program, I would like to know more about what the Soviets
actually have. What tests have been done, using what technologies, and
with what results? Note that the ABM system deployed around Moscow is
permitted by the ABM treaty and has no relevance to arguments for SDI.
Note also that the Soviet ASAT system constitutes an issue separate from
SDI.
David Allan (David_Allan@UM.CC.UMICH.EDU)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 86 23:05:42 pdt
From: weemba@brahms.berkeley.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Subject: compromise of unintelligence
I'm eating crow about my factual assertions about the Libya bombing,
but I still stand by me abstract assertion concerning further damage.
Note 1: I am speaking hypothetically on the assumption that the
intercepted message is indeed as claimed by our government.
Note 2: Apparently the original was in Berber, not Arabic. I have
also heard that no encoding/encryption was done, and that it was
wrongly assumed that the language barrier was enough. I find that
claim dubious. It may have worked in WWII against the Japanese, but
they were notoriously poor at intelligence gathering. We are not.
Anyway, in response to Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>:
>> > Revealing the actual content of the [Libyan]
>> >intercepted communication would have added not at all to this
>> >initial [intelligence compromise] damage, [Wayne McGuire]
>>
>>Yes it could have. It could have alerted other countries to a
>>particular kind of weakness in *their* systems.
>
>How come? What difference would it make to have seen the original
>arabic for this particular message? It could have been typed out
>on ordinary paper, couldn't it? Am I missing something?
But what was the "message"? A spelled out plan-of-attack? Or some
sort of code whose analysis is based on several years of deduction?
In the first case, I see no immediate harm in its release, although
the precedent seems bad--what if next time is like the second case?
But in the second case, anyone else who intercepted the transmission
would be able to compare before and after, and so get a big clue as
to what was crackable.
Also, what if a text had been released, claimed to be our experts'
reading of the transmitted code/cipher? It only pushes the level of
government credibility to a different unknown plateau. Do you now
roll over and accept the claimed expert analysis, or do push even
further? At some point, you have to look outside and draw your own
inferences.
> Wasn't the
>U.S. caught red-faced because in all the rhetoric it had forgot the
>implied original would have been in arabic?
I don't know what you are referring to here, even hypothetically. Was
something said that turned on some difference between English/Berber
grammar, revealing the underlying charade? That's the only meaning I
can give to your question, and it seems too unnatural.
ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
------------------------------
Date: 1986 October 19 17:22:39 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject:many bush wars * low probability of armageddan = we all die someday
LIN> Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1986 14:13 EDT
LIN> From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
LIN> Subject: Strategic Deception
From: Wayne McGuire <Wayne%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU>
One must begin to wonder whether getting on with this war has become
such an urgent concern for the neocons and their traditional
conservative allies that they are--as in the case of false reports
about Libyan "hit teams" in the U.S.--willing to use
disinformation--including the _manufacture_ of evidence--to push us
over the brink into a military confrontation which could rapidly
escalate into a world war.
LIN> I have asked this question before, but I'd like to pose it again.
LIN> Please supply a plausible scenario for how such a confrontation would
LIN> push us into world war with the Soviets, especailly given Soviet
LIN> behavior in the wake of the U.S. attacks on Libya.
If this happened only once or twice your question would demand an answer. But
we have been having "bush wars" for thirty years. Each time there is a tiny
probability of a major war, but if we have enough of these chances for world
war somday we'll be "lucky" and win the jackpot of all out thermonuclear war.
We need to reduce these "bush wars" to a rarity so we can use your apparent
logic that if the chance is small we don't have to worry about it.
One further problem is that with so many "bush wars" is that when a
potentially big war appears we're so pre-occupied with three simultaneous
"bush wars" that we don't notice the new dangerous situation or we don't have
energy to keep it from "exploding". Also we become used to war and accept
another war as "life". We have never had peace in recent years, just a facade
of peace where we aren't fighting here in our backyards but we're fighting
secretly over there somewhere and simultaneously over there and over there.
Your question may be valid, but even without an answer there's cause for
concern about setting up a principle that our government can lie to us to get
us into "bush war" after "bush war" whenever they feel like it.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1986 11:59 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: many bush wars * low probability of armageddan = we all die someday
[see above..]
I don't disagree with your logic. I simply asked for a plausible
scenario, and I don't think I have gotten one. I do agree that
brush-fire wars are bad things, and we should work to eliminate them.
Your question may be valid, but even without an answer there's cause
for concern about setting up a principle that our government can lie
to us to get us into "bush war" after "bush war" whenever they feel
like it.
Again, I agree.
------------------------------
From: caip!meccts!jlt@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 86 22:33:47 edt
Subject: US bases in England
Reply-To: meccts!jlt@seismo.CSS.GOV (James L. Thompson)
>From: Rick.Busdiecker@h.cs.cmu.edu
>Subject: U.S. bases in England (Lin)
>
>Are there British bases in the United States? While their existance
>seems plausible, I have never heard of any. If none exist then it
>seems reasonable to assume that the U.S. bases in England are, in fact,
>the result of U.S. military superiority over the British.
I disagree, it is not reasonable to assume that we hold a gun to the
heads of our allies in order to place military bases in their contries.
The reason we do have bases in other contries and not the other way
around is simple, money. The USA not only pays it's own way in NATO
but also foots the bill for most of the rest of NATO as well. Unlike
the Warwaw Pact countries, the members of NATO are there because they
want to be, not because they are colonies of the Soviet Empire...
---
James L. Thompson - {amdahl,caip,ihnp4}!meccts!jlt -or- jlt@mecc.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 86 04:39:48 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Subdelegation of authority to use nuclear weapons
> But the crucial question is to what extent this delegation of
> authority is to machines.
> That is, are humans making the ultimate decisions (good) or are humans merely
> rubber-stamping decisions made by software (bad)? We don't know...
I agree we need an answer to this. However, we already know we're
in the robot's claw by virtue of the *100% dependence* of, e.g.,
launch on warning, upon computerized sensors, which could go wrong.
(My research into dual-phenomenology/data-fusion/posture-statements
has lead me to conclude that it amounts to little more than the rule
that if two of NORAD's screens give an alarm at the same-ish time,
they have the discretion to issue a confirmed attack declaration.)
Second, it's not just whether there's machines involved that is the
issue, but also whether the Pres. is involved. The 1946 (&1954)
Atomic Energy Act was enacted to ensure civilian control of nuclear
weapons. It said the Pres., and only the Pres., could order the use
of nucs. It still says the same thing. Therefore, if authority has
been delegated to the military, that in itself is an impermissible
subdelegation. Technically speaking, such delegation violates the
Subdelegation Act (1951) rather the Atomic Energy Act.
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Monday, 20 October 1986 10:38-EDT
From: Bryan Fugate <fugate at mcc.com>
To: ARMS-D
Re: stealth
In the Popular Science Magazine, September 1986 edition , was a must-read
article "Stealth; first glimpse of the invisible aircraft now under
construction". According to the author, T.A. Heppenheimer, the
Northrop Advanced-Technology (Stealth) Bomber is based on the same type
of flying-wing construction that was evident in the YB-49 Northrop flying
wing which first flew in 1947.
In order to build a plane without sharp corners and few reflective features,
inherent instabilities are introduced in the plane's ability to maneuver.
Until recently, stabilization and control problems were so serious that the
flying-wing concept was unworkable. New computer techniques, however, as
proven in the Grumman X-29 forward-swept-wing aircraft make it feasible for
the first time to make the new minimum RCS (Radar Cross Section) technologies
to be used.
Other techniques for stealth besides minimum RCS are RAM (Radar Absorbant
Materials), lowering the IRS (Infra-Red Signature) by hiding engine ducts
and cooling exhaust gases, and by sophisticated new ECM techniques.
It seems like stealth fighters and bombers have already gone into production.
------------------------------
Date: 16 Oct 86 20:03:00 [...]
From: [anonymous]
To: RISKS-LIST:, risks at sri-csl
Re: System effectiveness is NOT a constant!
There seems to be a tendency in the current SDI debate to fall into an
old engineering fallacy: that systems scale up linearly. Everyone
seems to avoid this trap when talking about cost and effort--it seems
to be well accepted that a 10-million line program is much harder than
10 1-million line programs-- but (most) people are *not* avoiding the
trap when they speak of SDI's effectiveness. A recurrent argument
seems to be that "SDI will be 80% [to use a number currently being
bandied about] effective against a Soviet attack of N missiles; thus
the Soviets would have to build and launch 5N missiles in order to
have N missiles reach their targets, which would be economically
ruinous." The implicit assumption is that if SDI is x% effective
against N, it will continue to be x% effective against N'. This is
fallacious unless x is very close to 0 or 100%. Assuming 80%
effectiveness and 1000 missiles, SDI stops 800. Using the reasoning
above, against 2000 missiles, SDI would stop 1600; but this cannot be
so. If 1000 missiles strains the system to the point that it can only
stop 800, why would anyone think it could stop more when the number of
missiles and decoys is doubled, straining the system's ability to
identify, track, and destroy missiles at least twice as much? Or to
put it another way, if SDI could stop 1600 out of 2000, shouldn't it
be able to stop 1600 out of, say, 1800 (1800 is surely an easier
problem than 2000!). Or turn the argument around: if SDI can stop 800
out of 1000--80% effectiveness--does this mean it can stop only 80 out
of a 100-missile attack? Or 8 out of a 10-missile attack?
When anyone says that SDI will have such-and-such effectiveness, they
must be made to state the assumptions used to calculate that
effectiveness. Otherwise the numbers are meaningless.
------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 18 October 1986 17:51-EDT
From: scott at rochester.arpa (Michael L. Scott)
To: RISKS-LIST:, risks at csl.sri.com
Re: Editorial on SDI
The following is an op-ed piece that I wrote for the Rochester, NY,
DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE. It appeared on page 4A on September 29, 1986.
'STAR WARS' CAN'T SUCCEED AS SHIELD, HAS OFFENSIVE CAPABILITY
Can the Strategic Defense Initiative succeed? The answer depends
critically on what you mean by success. Unfortunately, the public per-
ception of the purpose of SDI differs dramatically from the actual goals
of the program.
In his original "Star Wars" speech, President Reagan called upon
the scientific community to make nuclear weapons "impotent and
obsolete." He has maintained ever since that this is the SDI goal: to
develop an impenetrable defensive shield that would protect the American
population from attack. With such a shield in place, nuclear missiles
would be useless, and both the United States and the Soviet Union could
disarm.
Can such a shield be built? The most qualified minds in the coun-
try say "no." In an unprecedented move, over 6,500 scientists and
engineers at the nation's research Universities have signed a statement
indicating that "Anti-ballistic missile defense of sufficient reliabil-
ity to defend the population of the United States against a Soviet
attack is not technically feasible." The signatures were drawn from
over 110 campuses in 41 states, and include 15 Nobel Laureates in Phy-
sics and Chemistry, and 57% of the combined faculties of the top 20 Phy-
sics departments in the country. Given the usual political apathy of
scientists and engineers, these numbers are absolutely staggering.
The obstacles to population defense include a vast array of prob-
lems in physics, optics, astronautics, computer science, economics, and
logistics. Some of these problems can be solved with adequate funding
for research; others cannot. Consider the single subject of software
for "Star Wars" computers. As a researcher in parallel and distributed
computing, I am in a position to speak on this subject with considerable
confidence. The computer programs for population defense would span
thousands of computers all over the planet and in space. They would
constitute the single largest software system ever written. There is
absolutely no way we could ever be sure that the software would work
correctly.
Why not? To begin with, we cannot anticipate every possible
scenario in a Soviet attack. Human commanders cope with unexpected
situations by drawing on their experience, their common sense, and their
knack for military tactics. Computers have no such abilities. They can
only deal with situations they were programmed in advance to expect.
Before we can even start to write the programs for "Star Wars," we must
predict every situation that might arise and every trick the Soviets
might pull. Would you bet the future of the United States that the Rus-
sians won't think of ANYTHING we haven't thought of first?
Even if we could specify exactly what we want the computers to do,
the task of translating that specification into flawless computer pro-
grams would be beyond our capabilities for many, many years, possibly
forever. Current and projected techniques for testing and quality con-
trol may reduce the number of flaws in large computer systems, but
actual use under real-life conditions will always uncover further
"bugs." (For details on the software problem, see Dr. David Parnas's
article in the October 1985 issue of AMERICAN SCIENTIST.) The only way
to gain real confidence in "Star Wars" software would be to try it out
in full-scale nuclear combat. Such testing is clearly not an option.
But if effective population defense is impossible, why are we
spending billions of dollars on SDI, and why are the Russians so upset
about it? The answer is remarkably simple: because population defense
is not the goal of SDI. The kinetic and directed energy devices being
developed for the "Star Wars" program will have a tremendous range of
uses in offensive weapons and in increasing the survivability of U.S.
land-based missiles. The Soviets fear "Star Wars" for its first-strike
capabilities. To make nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, SDI would
have to be perfect. To shoot down Soviet satellites, to thin out a
pre-emptive strike on U.S. missile fields, or to develop exotic new
weapons for the conventional battlefield, SDI will only need to succeed
on a much more modest level.
By focusing public attention on the unattainable goal of population
defense, the Administration has managed to avoid discussion of the more
practical, immediate consequences of SDI research. The weapons
developed for "Star Wars" will have a profound impact on both our war-
fighting strategy and our treaty obligations. That impact should be the
subject of public and Congressional debate. By pretending to develop a
defensive shield, the President has fooled the American people into
funding a program that is far less clear-cut and benign. In effect, he
has sold a system we cannot build in order to build a system he cannot
sell.
BYLINE:
Michael L. Scott is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at
the University of Rochester. His article was co-signed by 10 other
faculty members [almost the entire department] and 36 doctoral
students and researchers. The views expressed should not be regarded
as the official position of the University of Rochester or of its
Computer Science Department.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1986 12:09 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: facade of democracy over fact of dictatorship, LIN merely stating fact
LIN> The U.S. government will not necessarily acknowledge everything
LIN> explicitly, especially when it would create a storm of public
LIN> controversey.
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS at SU-AI.ARPA>
... It sounds to me that LIN is arguing in favor of having
some kind of dictatorship here in the USA.
LIN> Hardly. I made what I regarded as a statement of fact.
Ok, I misunderstood, sorry. As I now understand it, you are merely
claiming that in fact we have sort of a facade of democracy over a fact
of secret dictatorship, and were expressing no moral value, right?
Not quite. No government will make all decisions in the open. All
governments will try to mold public opinion by selective release of
information. I have no objections to these general statements. The
relevant issue is WHICH decisions should be made in the open, and
which should not, and more importantly, HOW can you decide? How much
molding of public opinion is proper? What are acceptable ways of
doing it? These are the hard questions, rather than the abstract
principle that "Governments should be open".
In general, I believe that the current administration has gone over
the line in what is acceptable manipulation and secrecy, but that is a
judgment call, not a rejection of the idea that "governments should
always be absolutely truthful." There are some circumstances under
which governments should be able to misrepresent and lie; not many,
but some. But do I accept the general principle that governments
should be truthful? Yes.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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