ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/08/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Wednesday, January 8, 1986 12:47AM
Volume 6, Issue 13.1
Today's Topics:
More on Soviet Defense
Soviet Defense
more carriers in action
more carriers in action
Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #12.1
Deep Strike policy
Re: Book Review
SDI forcing a Shift of Policy
Frames of Reference
Nuclear vs Conventional Arms
Re: Another SDI Problem
Re: Another SDI Problem
SDI: testing and other thoughts.
SDI Testing
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Date: Tue, 7 Jan 86 20:41:30 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: More on Soviet Defense
From: Jeff Miller AMSTE-TEI 4675 <jmiller at apg-1>
I would raise again the question of defining defense. The USSR
admittedly gears its policies in terms of defense, defense of its
basic imperialist encroachment, which is in its turn a defensive
reaction... What difference does it make that the Soviet leadership
considers its military outlays purely defensive if their defensiveness
is based on a paranoia that requires them to look upon the world from
behind militarized borders and bands of buffer states which never seem
to totally satisfy?
You have hit the nail on the head for my purposes. What do *we* in
the US consider to be legitimate *Soviet* defense needs? Never mind
about their paranoia -- what do we think?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 86 20:42:16 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Soviet Defense
From: Jeff Miller AMSTE-TEI 4675 <jmiller at apg-1>
> My point was that our techniques of command and control and of
logistics, which, like numerous other factors, increase combat
potential, are probably not so great that they would significantly
offset the Soviets capabilities in the same areas, which would, of
course, bring us back to square one in the bean counting.
Then why do we spend so much money on these things?
This is a specific case of a more general proposition -- the NATO
outspends the WP in defense even taking into account differences in
manpower costs, has more total people under arms, and has more
advanced military technology. How come the balance is so lop-sided??
** For power projection in the sense of third world intervention, I am
right. For PP in the sense of strategic PP, you are right; I meant
the former.
> I disagree as to your rigtness. At the present time we can see an
example. Our government threatens possible military retaliation
against Libya. The Soviets say they will use their Mediterranean
fleet to break any type of blockade.
A blockade of Libya that the Soviet Navy tries to break doesn't to me
count as 3rd world intervention. We would want to attack land targets
in Libya; what would the Soviets want to attack?
Until you can answer that, you haven't addressed my sense of
interventionary PP.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 86 20:42:36 EST
From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn at ucbvax.berkeley.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: more carriers in action
My opinions were partly influenced by the game Norht Atlantic '86,
which shows what kind of forces the Soviets could throw at a convoy.
It looks like a large task force is the only way to get the vulnerable
convoy across the Atlantic without heavy losses from submarines, surface
craft and land-based aircraft. Maybe they won't admit it now, but it
looks that way unless other forces can distract the Soviets in Europe.
The game assumed the Soviets had control of the continent, with Britain
still free.
Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 86 20:42:39 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: more carriers in action
From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn at ucbvax.berkeley.edu
My opinions were partly influenced by the game Norht Atlantic '86,
which shows what kind of forces the Soviets could throw at a convoy.
It looks like a large task force is the only way to get the vulnerable
convoy across the Atlantic without heavy losses from submarines, surface
craft and land-based aircraft.
It is far more likely that the Sov forces would be directed against US
battle groups trying to implement the maritime strategy.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (08/02/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, August 2, 1986 12:02AM
Volume 6, Issue 131
Today's Topics:
Re: Reagan's "Arms Control" Proposal
radiation and health
Quotations on the linear hypothesis and on the interaction of toxins
orbital defensive weaponry
Weather
Re: Constructive criticism of Administration arms control
Re: Ionizing radiation health hazards
with another 10 warheads
KAL007 - Should we forget?
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Date: 31 Jul 86 14:57-EST
From: sam mccracken <oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Reagan's "Arms Control" Proposal
-----
correct me if i'm wrong, but the usg does not need to certify anything to
the congress in order to implement a provision of a ratified treaty.
it's like the confirmation of cabinet officers. we settled in 1868 that
the requirement of confirmation is limited to appointment, not termination.
------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 31 July 1986 16:51-EDT
From: Jan Steinman <hplabs!tektronix!tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM!jans at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
To: hplabs!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!ARMS-D at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Re: radiation and health
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR
I think Steve is showing his limited exposure to radiation issues.
Encyclopedias deal with factual material well, but tend toward conservatism
on controversial issues. I was suprised to see the Brittanica admit that
"atomic plants... may eventually contribute considerably to worldwide
radiation background... by the year 2000". I essentially have no argument
with Steve's presentation of the Brittanica information, but it is at this
point that he gets led astray.
There will always be controversy. Gallileo was wrong in his day due to the
strong influence of the church and the prevailing political climate.
Although atomic power's reputation has suffered some tarnish since TMI,
government and industry are both solidly behind it to this day. Suggesting
that 260 excess infant deaths occured as a result of the accident at TMI is
today no less heretical than Gallileo's printing that the Earth circled the
Sun.
Luckily, things are a bit different today. When the prestigious, but
biased, journal cited by Steve in his arguments (Science magazine) refused
to publish Sternglass's infant death study, he was able to publish
elsewhere, unlike Gallileo, who was thrown in prison. One source does not
an argument make.
There are two points to this posting: 1) Because of the preponderance of
the pro-nuclear forces of government, industry, and big money, we owe the
other side a careful listen. 2) In matters of public safety, we should err
on the conservative side.
Although Steve apparently is willing to agree with point 2, his argument
shows no evidence of opposition exposure. I do not accept the Science
article (which I have read) as proof that no one was harmed at TMI, just as
Steve does not accept the Sternglass studies (which he has not read) as
proof that a statistically significant increase in infant deaths occurred
during the TMI accident. Shouldn't we err in favor of caution?
(One idea I have been pushing is that all a utility's executives should be
required to establish residence downwind within the 5 mile "unevacuable
zone", which in Civil Defense jargon, is the area where people cannot be
protected from a major accident. Precedant for this exists -- many
politicians and civil servants are required to live within the
jurisdictions their policies affect. I digress...)
My references are on loan -- I will certainly present the infant death
study in more detail at a later date.
This is getting rather far from arms discussion, but unlike Steve, I feel
there is significance in all this. There are those who are willing to
accept the government's line, and there are others who insist on
questioning authority, constantly seeking accountablilty. Atomic energy
and atomic weapons are inextricably bound, and are essentially both part of
the same issue: the continuance of human life on this planet.
--
:::::: Artificial Intelligence Machines --- Smalltalk Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 60-405 (w)503/685-2956 ::::::
:::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 14:02:31 pdt
From: Dave Benson <benson%wsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Quotations on the linear hypothesis and on the interaction of toxins
From 1960 to the present, an overwhelming amount of
data have been accumulated that show there is no safe
level of exposure and there is no dose of radiation
so low that the risk of a malignancy is zero... For
man there is never a complete repair of the
radiation damage, since even at very low exposure
levels there are many thousands of interactions of
the radiation with cells of the human body.
K. Morgan, "Cancer and Low Level Ionizing
Radiation", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Vol 34, No. 7, Sept 1978, p.30ff.
According to Dr John Gofman, co-discoverer of uranium-233
and three other radionuclides and Assistant Director of the
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, from
1963 to 1969, a mere .011 micrograms of reactor plutonium
is enough to cause cancer in a cigarette-smoking male. ...
For non-smokers the amount needed for cancer is 1.4 micrograms.
Jim Garrison, The Plutonium Culture: From Hiroshima
to Harrisburg, Continium Publ. Corp., New York, 1981, p.133,
citing as reference: Berger, Nuclear Power: The
Unviable Option, p. 75.
------------------------------
Date: 1 Aug 1986 06:01:20 PDT
Subject: orbital defensive weaponry
From: Jerry Mungle <JMUNGLE@ADA20.ISI.EDU>
I have a question about orbital defensive weaponry. Suppose the US
places a set of orbital weapons (for shooting at ICBMs) in space. Shooting
down those weapons would likely be considered a hostile act. Now, were
one to take a first cut a designing a countermeasure for such an orbital
system, one would likely place small space mines a short distance away
from each orbital weapon. (In fact, one might put stick'em on the surface
of the space mine, and stick it to the side of the orbital weapon!) Shooting
down the space mines would be considered a hostile act, too (sauce for the
gander, and all that). The question is, what do you do to prevent such
a countermeasure? Are there treaties that prevent such actions?
------------------------------
Date: Fri 1 Aug 86 10:07:42-ADT
From: Don Chiasson <CHIASSON@DREA-XX.ARPA>
Subject: Weather
>From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
>Subject: KAL007 = 21*MX = LOWC ?
> .....
>The night was not clear, but was heavily overcast, ....
Overcast at 30,000 feet??????
------------------------------
Date: 1 Aug 86 9:37-EST
From: Sam McCracken <oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Constructive criticism of Administration arms control
-----
"No first use" seems to me to be a meaningless concession. The ultimate in
the unverifiable policy. As for missiles in Europe, why should we unilaterally
ent
of SS-20s? And as to our alleged "violation" of SALT treaties, Salt II has neve
been ratified and has in fact expired. And are there any allegations that we
have violated Salt I or II comparable to the allegations of violations by the
Soviets?
------------------------------
Date: 1 Aug 86 9:45-EST
From: Sam McCracken <oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Ionizing radiation health hazards
-----
The massive study conducted by the Chinese of populations in areas with
sharply differing background radiation constitute, it seems to me,
a pre-Chernobyl example of low-level research involving humans.
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 25 July 1986 13:50-EDT
From: Eugene miya <eugene at ames-aurora.arpa>
To: lin at mit-xx, arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Re: with another 10 warheads
To: ames!ihnp4!utzoo!henry
Cc: eugene
Subject: latest arms d
Re: your Bundy comment, further flak.
This is going to sound like Burdick's Failsafe with Henry as Professor
Grot-what-ever: dove turned hawk because he fell in love with the numbers
and the technology.
>This is rhetoric, not reasoning.
Description of WWII destruction and defense.
p.s. my mother was an American citizen in Tokyo at the
time of the firebombing and she has her fire-storm stories.
[debates about the actual number of firestorms in WWII are
stupid].
>> I think 10 warheads would be utterly intolerable.
>It depends on what you mean by "tolerable". Considering alternatives like
>the utter destruction of Western civilization, hundreds of millions dead,
>and possibly a nuclear winter on top of it all, I would find 10 warheads
>eminently tolerable. Society would survive it, and any individual member
>of society (e.g. me) would have a high probability of surviving it.
>
>"Do not let the difference between `good' and `bad' blind you to the
>difference between `bad' and `worse'."
The problem of SCALE:
The difference, Henry, discussed since the 1960s is the concept of limited
nuclear war ("This weeks topic" in the book). The problem with your
comparison are the time scales involved. Bundy deliberately used 10
warheads since this is beyond the "warning shot across the bow"
and more limited pre-war concepts. It is not clear whether 10 warheads
is possible without further escalation simply because of time scales
involved. What ten targets would we try and hit?: not clear
ten Moscow warheads would get one thru. What ten would they hit?
Note this is not decapitation, so what is the probably WDC would survive?
I think less than a one-two warhead engagement.
Intolerability is certainly a possibility.
--eugene miya
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 86 20:23:53 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
Subject: KAL007 - Should we forget?
> I believe that this has been gone over in the past. We can all cite sources
> that support our position. For example, Viktor Belenko's article in
> Reader's Digest paints a very different picture than the one provided by R.
> W. Johnson. One such point is that tracers have far too short a range to
> have been seen by the 747 pilot. Some of the conspiracy articles published
> have been retracted. Of course conspiracy theorists would say "they" forced
> the retractions. I suppose that KAL007 theories will be with us as long as
> Kennedy assassination theories. Given the high level of noise and small
> quantity of hard facts, I don't think it will prove fruitful to have a long
> discussion in this digest.
There's a large quantity of hard facts now - it was the ICAO who
made their report based a few facts, stating in their original
report that radar tapes did not exist; they were discovered later.
It is fruitful because a lot of people have the mistaken impression
that the evidence is kind-of-evenly balanced, and that new evidence
has not arisen, and that the truth will forever be hidden. In fact,
this seems to be your opinion, in support of which you bring up a
single fact, namely that the tracers "had far too short a range to
have been seen by the KAL007 pilot." That is simply untrue:
"...it is certainly true that tracer bullets lose their brilliance
after travelling around 9000 feet - but Major Kasim's SU-15 was
about two kilometers behind 007 when the tracers were fired, and
two kilometers is 6562 feet." (R.W.Johnson, p.246.) As John Glenn
commented: "it's inconceivable that he would have missed all those
tracers going by." (Wash. Post 09/13/83.)
What other "such points" do you have? Unless you state them on the
record, I remain sceptical. My position is that the evidence in
favor of the espionage hypothesis is overwhelming, and accordingly
the decisions to deploy the MX and manufacture nerve-gas, decisions
which effect us to day, were speciously taken. Whether this is so
seems important to try to establish, unless you want to give up on
understanding arms control, that is.
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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