ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/08/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Tuesday, January 7, 1986 5:50PM
Volume 6, Issue 12.2
Today's Topics:
See #12.1
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Date: Mon 6 Jan 86 18:03:10-PST
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@LOTS-A>
Subject: Re: Another SDI Problem
From: Paul Dietz <dietz%slb-doll.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
If putting thousands of tons of defensive hardware into orbit is
practical, what is to keep to opposing side from placing thousands
of tons of OFFENSIVE hardware in orbit?
Nothing. You have a good point that needs further examination.
It could be that nuclear weapons in space are too vulnerable to
space based lasers, for example.
Quite possible. For instance, it would be much more dificult to
deploy and maintain the status of decoys, since the defensive systems
will now have a long time to differentiate decoys from actual targets.
You could also put KE weapons in close orbit, so you would not need
the speed of lasers. KE weapons are also better at destroying decoys
and target, since they can be used in a "shotgun" mode.
If this is the case then those lasers should also be vulnerable to
other lasers, so a defense dominated world would be highly
unstable.
This brings up a point I have not seen discussed, namely the heat sink
problem (which is the limiting problem for defense against lasers).
Battlestations could produce a lot of heat that cannot easily be
carried away by convection (you would have to dump valuable mass
overboard) or radiating (the fins would be very large, increasing
vulnerability to attack).
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 86 18:01 pst
From: "del tufo joseph%e.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Subject: "deltufo%d"@lll-mfe.arpa
requesting any information
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 86 21:43 EST
From: Andreas.Nowatzyk@A.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: Re: KAL007
Re: KAL007
>
> 4) "The steady course of KAL007 required several inflight checks..."
> But as Sayle notes, KAL007 flew a steady magnetic heading of 246
> throughout its flight. An airline on autopilot requires no such
> checks. The filed flight plan would have required the crew to have
> reset the inertial guidance system waypoints twice during the
> flight, true; but if the autopilot was on a magnetic heading the
> crew would never have been alerted to reset waypoints- until they
> either noted that they seemed to have been on course for too long,
> or were alerted by some other means.
>
According to a study by the German equivalent of the FAA which
was cited in an article of "Der Spiegel", KAL246 did not fly a
steady magnetic heading of 246. They used a 747 simulator and tried
several versions of possible pilot errors, such as
a) forgetting to switch to inertial navigation
b) Typos while programming the INS (transposing 2 digits of the
coordinates of one waypoint comes close)
c) skipping a waypoint
The conclusion was that no *single* operator error provides an
explanation of the actual course (a combination of 2 or more
operator errors might explain it, but such a simulation has too
many variables to be convincing). It was also noted that the pilots
must have violated normal flight procedures: By the time the plane
passed the last VOR in Alaska, the deviation from the normal
course was already significant. The normal procedure required a
check against the VOR which would have uncovered the problem.
It was noted that the spy-community uses events like this to study
the electronic signatures of the opponent's radars etc. and their
intercept procedures.
The bottom line of the Spiegel article is that both official stories
(the one of the US and of the SU) have giant holes.
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Date: Mon, 6 Jan 86 21:55:12 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Putting a Man into the Loop
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM at Epic>
After an attack is acknowledged, you concede the possibility
of overkilling by the computer (taking out third party
satellites and the like) in return for the more immediate
response to attack provided by the computer.
So your solution is that you kill everything, and don't do
discrimination?
No. I meant exactly what I said. You concede that you might make a
mistake in firing (which was your original objection).
Do you have your sources right? I don't think I said this...
You do not aim
for making a mistake. I explicitly said in the same message that one
of the jobs of human operators is to assist in real time parameter
adjustment so that the computer controlled weapons would be able to
discriminate better.
Why do you think the decoy discrimination problem is simply a matter
of parameter adjustment?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 86 22:02:07 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: The Goal of SDI
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM at Epic>
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
We all, including the public, would like as high an X as
possible, they would agree that losing a city or two and some
missile bases/airfields would be a lot better than losing
everything.
But that is not the goal of the SDI.
Which does not mean it should not be supported for that reason. Most
government programs have consequences (sometimes good, sometimes bad)
never conceived of in their initial purpose. That does not mean you
ignore them when evaluating the program.
My major problem is that I cannot make a case for SDI in the form of
population defense *at all*, nor have I seen one made by you or anyone
else. You are proceeding on the assumption that there is not a down
side to SDI, and that's simply wrong. My technical argument against
SDI essentially boils down to uncertainties about actual performance.
These uncertainties have significant military and strategic
implications, and they are mostly negative.
Do you want to score points
against Reagan and Company? Or do you want to discuss strategic
defense, and SDI as it is developing?
My objection to RR and SDI is NOT the research into SDI, but rather
the shift of policy that seems to be accompanying SDI. It's as though
the President announced a program of research to make people immortal,
and proceeded to formulate policy on the basis of the expectation that
the goal would indeed be reached. I don't really object to research
into immortality, but to begin to abandon Social Security and
retirement policies on the basis of expecting that people will soon
become immortal, that's another question.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (07/19/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, July 19, 1986 10:36AM
Volume 6, Issue 122
Today's Topics:
administrivia
alternatives to "yet more hardware" for defense
farm subsidies
SDI performance requirments - who said what?
Women, Science, and Nuclear Policy
Preparing for war
Ten Warheads
SDI and the ICBM threat
emotional non-factual poem by some random uncommon woman
10 warheads
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Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1986 01:17 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: administrivia
The following address is not recognized by my mailer. Please send
this person a note to give me another address.
Psychnet <EPSYNET at UHUPVM1>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 11:15:59 MDT
From: b-davis@utah-cs.arpa (Brad Davis)
Subject: Re: alternatives to "yet more hardware" for defense
In Reply To: estell%143c.decnet@nwc-143b.ARPA
>I have often wondered in my non-professional way WHY we pay American farmers
>to NOT grow foods, when it seems that much of the world needs food. [I say
>"non professional" because perhaps if I were an economist or such I would
>know the answer.]
Sad to say but the arms race is not limited to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Most places in the world that need food will buy all the arms that they
can get their hands on but not the food that they need. In other words,
there is no market for excess American food among the starving third-
world nations. Many countries have been known to sell the food that the
U.S. sent as foreign aid (at below market rates) and use the money to buy
arms (usually Eastern Block).
Brad Davis
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 13:56:02 pdt
From: weemba@brahms.berkeley.edu (Wimpy Math Grad Student)
Subject: farm subsidies
>I have often wondered in my non-professional way WHY we pay American farmers
>to NOT grow foods, when it seems that much of the world needs food. [Bob]
To prevent overfarming and consequent long term destruction of the land.
ucbvax!brahms!weemba Wimpy Grad Student/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 86 22:48:06 PDT
From: jon@uw-june.arpa (Jon Jacky)
Subject: SDI performance requirments - who said what?
> Henry Spencer writes:
>
> Far too much of the anti-SDI rhetoric scores "crucial" points by assuming
> that SDI must be held to far stricter standards than any other defence
> system ...
>
Who is guilty of such rhetoric? The most hyperbolic promises on behalf
of SDI that I am aware of are by proponents. Last October 21 at MIT James
Ionson of the SDIO repeated the old business about "if we have three levels
which are at least 90% effective, then the total system will be 99% effective"
(or whatever - maybe there were four layers). Reagan's views are on the
record and are well known. A July 2 UPI story (Seattle PI, p. A2) quotes
Weinberger, "A myopic focus on terminal defense can ... possibly lead us
to mistake something less than total defense as sufficient for our
requirements." What do you think he meant? How do you think the average
person who listens to a news broadcast is supposed to interpret this?
In fact, any system intended to defend populations from nuclear weapons
really must be held to far stricter standards than any other defense
system. Conventional defense (or hard-point nuclear defense) works by
attrition: England won the Battle of Britain by knocking out 10% of each
raid. Clearly, the Germans would have lost their whole air force before
very much of London was destroyed, so they quit. On the other hand, a
75% effective nuclear defense is not very interesting, given the size of
today's offensive arsenals.
SDI proponents like to say "It needn't be 99.99% effective..." but never
respond in the obvious way. Well, how about it? How effective does it
have to be? Complete this sentence: "SDI won't be worth building unless
it can stop at least X percent of the Soviet missile force." (Or, X percent
per billion dollars. Or, any other metric of your choice).
-Jonathan Jacky
University of Washington
------------------------------
From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 86 01:21:15 edt
Subject: Women, Science, and Nuclear Policy
Richard Cowan writes:
> ...The article focuses on the attitudes of female scientists who do not
> wish to conform to male standards, and who therefore wish to transform
> the current culture of science.
My first reaction to this was "this sounds like sexist bigotry". My
second reaction was "there is some point to it, but it *still* sounds
like sexist bigotry". Most downtrodden groups (which women definitely
are) claim to be noble, pure of heart, morally superior to their
oppressors, etc etc. It seldom works out that way when they actually
get a chance to take over.
> It contrasts average women's attitudes
> with the attitudes of the male policymakers who have brought us nuclear
> pumped X-ray lasers and nuclear waste.
This sentence still makes its point if you change "women's" to "people's"
and delete "male" altogether, which makes the sex-based distinction dubious.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
From: decwrl!decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 86 22:30:32 edt
Subject: Preparing for war
Don Smith writes:
> I recently stated "When you prepare for war, war is what you will get.",
> and Henry Spencer complained "Historically this is not necessarily true,
> and I wish people would stop citing it as a fundamental axiom." Perhaps
> he would feel better if I had said "... are LIKELY to get." ...
On the whole I agree with this, and with Don's further comments about
investing resources in military preparations or peaceful coexistence.
I would add a couple of reservations. One is the obvious problem with
not preparing for war when your neighbor is busily doing so. The other
is the case of Switzerland, which didn't get its peaceful reputation
(and other related benefits, like surviving as an independent nation in
the middle of Nazi-occupied Europe) by being unarmed or unprepared.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Subject: Ten Warheads
Date: 14 Jul 86 11:02:46 PDT (Mon)
From: foy@aerospace.ARPA
Henry Spencer says, "I don't mind 10 warheads getting through..."
I would mind if 10 warheads exploded over Antartica. Perhaps not as much
as 1 each on the 10 largest cities in the US. Or perhaps more because I
prbably wouldn't be here to cope with the problems.
It disturbs me when people dismiss the death and distruction relusting from
the use of nuclear weapons.
Richard Foy, Redondo Beach, CA
The opinions I have expressed are the result of many years in the school of
hard knocks. Thus they are my own.
------------------------------
From: decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 86 20:35:26 edt
Subject: SDI and the ICBM threat
Herb writes:
> I beg to differ, but the Navy never said it would protect the
> population against battleships...
I'm sure if one had asked them at the right time, circa 1930 say, they
would have been pleased to tell you about how they would protect the
US coastline from attacks by foreign battle fleets. Battleships were
primarily designed to fight other battleships, but they had a major
shore-bombardment role too. (In fact, most of the shots fired in anger
by US battleships in WW2 were against shore targets.) This is what
"gunboat diplomacy" was all about, after all.
> The difference between most
> conventional weaponry and strategic nuclear missiles is that the
> former are aimed at each other, while the latter are aimed at people.
My recollection is that a lot of the current strategic nuclear missiles
are at least supposedly aimed at each other. And conventional weapons
do/did a lot of civilian-bashing too.
> It is tolerable to have less than perfect defense against other
> weapons, if you are trying to protect weapons. It isn't if you're
> trying to protect people.
Considering that virtually every defense system in history -- for an
example, take British air defences circa 1940 -- has been imperfect, I
see not the slightest shred of justification for this. An imperfect
defence is intolerable only if you yourself happen to be on the receiving
end of that part of the attack that it didn't stop. The vast majority
of the population, i.e. the ones who got missed, will agree that it is
very valuable and not at all intolerable.
> If DoD said the goal of SDI were only to protect missiles, none of
> this nonsense about perfect defense would be relevant...
This is true but unrelated to the issue, which is whether perfection is
a reasonable criterion for population defence.
> I think it was McGeorge Bundy that said that 10 warheads on a modern
> city would be a catastrophe beyond human comprehension, and even one
> warhead would be a political blunder never before seen in human
> history.
This is rhetoric, not reasoning. I agree that it would be a tremendous
disaster, although tremendous disasters are far from unknown in human
history and do not appear to be "beyond human comprehension". By
several reasonable criteria, the First World War was a far worse
political blunder than a few warheads on one North American city would
be. The later stages of World War II levelled virtually every German
and Japanese city almost as thoroughly as a warhead or two would; today
those two nations are among the world's greatest industrial powers.
Ten warheads would be a disaster, yes... but it would be neither beyond
human comprehension nor beyond our ability to cope.
> 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. Not
exactly an *attractive* prospect, but far superior to some alternatives.
"Do not let the difference between `good' and `bad' blind you to the
difference between `bad' and `worse'."
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 11 July 1986 14:48-EDT
From: Jan Steinman <hplabs!tektronix!tekecs.GWD!jans at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
To: hplabs!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!ARMS-D-Request at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Subject:emotional non-factual poem by some random uncommon woman
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR
>Date: 1986 July 08 11:16:47 PST (=GMT-8hr)
>From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
>Subject:emotional non-factual poem by some random uncommon woman
>
>>One arms control perspective I don't see very often is that
>>of most of the women I know. So I'm posting this poem...
>
>>Our children and the children of the Viet Namese women
>>are born malformed.
>
>Please name one American woman who has children born malformed due to
>the VietNam war.
These things are not easy to come by, and are routinely supressed by the
government. Although not pertaining to the Viet Nam War, see "Killing Our Own"
for documentary evidence collected by responsible journalists about the damage
done to many Americans of all ages by radioactivity, including deformed babies
in Utah downwind of nuclear weapons tests, and an estimated 260 excess infant
deaths in the Harrisburg area during the TMI accident. I would not be suprised
if the VA has deep in its vaults complaints from mothers of deformed children.
Of course, each file is stamped "TOP SECRET".
--
:::::: 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: Saturday, 12 July 1986 12:25-EDT
From: hplabs!pyramid!decwrl!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard.harvard.edu!maynard!campbell at ucbvax.berkeley.edu
To: arms-dXX.LCS.MIT.EDU
re: 10 warheads
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc.
> ...Just
>what constitutes "extensive protection" against ICBMs (personally I don't
>mind 10 warheads getting through but would object to 1000) and just how
>likely SDI is to achieve it is a different question. ...
>
> Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
Gee, Henry, I don't know about you, but 10 warheads would definitely
ruin MY day. Seriously, what bothers me most about SDI is that it
attempts to solve what is essentially a POLITICAL problem with TECHNICAL
means. This is compounded by the Reagan administration's demonstrated
contempt for political solutions. It's much better to simply prevent
the missiles from ever being fired than it is to attempt to construct
untestable defenses which by their nature require a level of performance
that most workers in the field publicly state is impossible to achieve.
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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