ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/06/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, January 5, 1986 6:43PM
Volume 6, Issue 10.1
Today's Topics:
Beyond War Awards
Soviet forces in Europe
Aversion to Nuclear War
Re: Putting a Man into the Loop
The Goal of SDI
Politicians
railroads
Boof Review [sic]
Man in SDI Loop
[GA.CJJ: Limited Nuclear War]
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Date: Sat 4 Jan 86 20:37:51-PST
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@Epic>
Subject: Beyond War Awards
Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
From: foy@aero
The Awards were not a farce for several reasons. Spencer did not
seem to be able to include Sweden and Tanzania in his comments.
On Sweden: it is known as one of the largest arms supplier outside of
the US/USSR (the most obvious example being its fighters). They
certainly seem to be betting a lot of their foreign trade on other
people continuing to fight wars.
Argentina has had a complete change of government since the
Falklins/Malvenas incident. I doubt very seriously if the current
government of Argentina will try to solve either the UK or the
Chile territorial dispute by violent means. Though my knowledge
of both disputes is not complete, it is sufficient to know that
there is merit on both sides of both disputes.
All governments suffer from some periods of peace. What about the
next military government? Or what about the current government if
negotiations failed? It would be better if there were not merit on
both sides - that way I could foresee someone backing down. But
sovereignty is almost impossible to compromise on by definition.
I am not as knowledgeable about the dispute between Greece and
Turkey. I also doubt that Greece is seriously considering going to
war with Turkey over this dispute.
Maybe, maybe not. But Greece is a member of NATO, hardly a country
club.
The current Gandhi is certainly not as skilled as the first one in
the use of non-violent means in conflict resolution. This in no
ways invalidates his comments about nuclear war.
India would be more believable if it were not a nuclear power itself.
The fact that I may not have settled all of my disputes with my
wife, boss, fellow workers, or people on this net in no way
invalidates my comments about nuclear war, nor does Spencer's
personal disputes if he has any give credence to his comments on
nuclear issues. Disputes between nuclear powers are qualtively
different from disputes between non nuclear powers...
Here you lose me. I thought your contention was that war was
obsolete, not just nuclear war. I could maybe buy the bit about
nuclear war, at least between the superpowers, but there is simply too
much evidence against the more general proposition - but that's for
another message.
Jim
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Date: Sun, 5 Jan 86 02:52:29 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Soviet forces in Europe
From: Gary Chapman <PARC-CSLI!chapman at glacier>
tanks are tanks.
In some ways, yes, and in others no. Given a Swedish AT-4 anti-tank
rocket, I'd rather face a T-62 (of which there are many) than a T-80
(of which there are few).
It is a fundamental assumption of military planning today, within the
military and even among DoD critics, that NATO forces are ridiculously
outgunned and outnumbered in Europe.
My complaint is precisely that; it is an *assumption* that NATO forces
would inevitably lose a war quickly in Europe. The analysis that
people have done in International Security *does* take into accouunt
things like the effects of C3 and logistics, and while the result
isn't as secure as I would like, it paints a different picture than
the standard one (on which I concur there is near consensus). As I
understand it, the Army didn't do similar studies until after the IS
articles came out.
This is why we have moved to the dangerous doctrine of deep strike,
"follow-on-forces-attack," and an increased offensive capability.
I concur that these are destabilizing. Given my position that the
conventional military situation in Europe isn't as bleak as people
usually claim, the recommendations that follow can safely get rid of
deep strike etc. Given the position that the conventional situation
is as bleak as is believed, then there really aren't many alternatives
to deep strike.
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Date: Sat 4 Jan 86 21:26:08-PST
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@Epic>
Subject: Aversion to Nuclear War
Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
4-Jan-86 21:06:30-PST,1058;000000000000
From: Nicholas.Spies@H.CS.CMU.EDU
Jim MacGrath says "Then you must be strongly in favor of
increasing conventional arms ... and SDI."
No, I am in favor of more efforts to encourage both US and Soviet
citizens and their governments to emphasize their common interests
rather than carping on our all-too-obvious differences....
There are too many differences for the US and USSR to simply lie down
with one another. Such activities may help ease tension, but it will
not eliminate it. Thus you must also support other means to reduce
the risk of nuclear war. Otherwise you are setting a goal that you
deem to be above all others (averting nuclear war) but refusing to
utilize all of the means available.
SDI's dubious protection will introduce more uncertainties
than it is supposed to reduce....
Great. Uncertainties reduce the incentive to launch a first strike.
That is exactly what we want. It is only when one side KNOWS that it
is better to strike first that it rationally will do so.
Jim
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Date: Sat 4 Jan 86 21:47:31-PST
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@Epic>
Subject: Re: Putting a Man into the Loop
Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
...
"go/no-go"
You mean fire/don't fire?
I mean weapon activation. Firing decisions for specific targets will
be made by computer, but the weapons themselves will be inert until
activated.
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). 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.
As I said earlier, boost phase poses a particular problem. The only
thing I can see to do now is to trust in AI to give you a good initial
screen, and to argument this with a human authorized to override the
problem in a few seconds. This could work well for limited periods of
time (such as alerts), but I have problems with it for extended
periods.
Jim
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP (06/06/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, June 5, 1986 10:34PM
Volume 6, Issue 101
Today's Topics:
Administrivia: re-sumissions from RISKS
Meteors mistaken for Atomic Explosions
ICBM destruct & crisis control
Analysis of trends in SDI
Soviet violations of treaties...
A Star Wars Query
Older missles
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Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 10:19 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Administrivia: re-sumissions from RISKS
There is a substantial overlap regarding SDI from RISKS. I will
forward to ARMS-D SDI and other military issues, and I will forward to
RISKS anything interesting that comes to ARMS-D, unless otherwise
requested.
------------------------------
Subject: Meteors mistaken for Atomic Explosions
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 86 08:42:44 -0800
From: Tim Shimeall <tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>
Interesting that this subject would appear on ARMS-D just now. For
an article on just this subject, see Time magazine, June 9, 1986, p. 65
(Science section). The concern raised in that article is that a high-altitude
explosion of a meteor (as happened in 1908 in Siberia) would be mistaken for
a nuclear attack. This would apparently not be a problem in the US or USSR,
which have detectors that can tell the difference between the two, but
would be a problem in Third World countries (for example, Pakistan).
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Thu 5 Jun 86 12:14:42-EDT
From: Marc Vilain <MVILAIN@G.BBN.COM>
Subject: ICBM destruct & crisis control
Re: (self-) destruction of ICBMs in flight
___________________________________________
All commercial rocket launches, as well as all launches of military
satellites, are performed with range safety destruct mechanisms on the
launch vehicles. These are used to destroy the rocket if it should go
off course and threaten to crash on populated areas. Marty Moore has
written eloquently (and at length) about this in several issues of the
RISKS digest.
As I understand, all test launches of ICBMs are performed with the
same range safety destruct mechanisms. Deployed ICBMs, however, do not
currently have this destruct mechanism: it is removed before
deployment.
Incidentally, Richard Garwin has advocated leaving range safety
destruct mechanisms on ICBMs as a much more cost-effective way of
guarding against accidental launch than would be the SDI.
On a related topic, Garwin discusses at length the various options
for arming or disarming ICBMs in flight in his seminal article on launch
under attack. (Richard L. Garwin, Launch Under Attack to Redress
Minuteman Vulnerability?, International Security, 4 (3), Winter 1979,
pp. 117-139).
Re: Crisis control centers
___________________________
A good popular introduction to the idea of crisis control can be
found in William Ury's book _Beyond_The_Hotline_ (Houghton Mifflin). It
covers past crises, escalation, accidental war, and Ury's own proposal
for a joint crisis control center.
There is also a recent article in Technology Review by Hilliard
Roderick: "Crisis Management, Preventing Accidental War", Technology
Review, August/September 1985.
Incidentally, I don't think the peace movement (multi-faceted as it
is) is at all in disfavor of the crisis control proposals. This at
least is my impression from my contacts within the Freeze organizations.
My impression is that a crisis control center is viewed as a positive
step towards better bilateral understanding, negotiation, freezes,
reductions, etc.
marc vilain.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 16:30 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Analysis of trends in SDI
Many thanks to Gary Chapman for his summary of SDI developments. Just
a couple of comments.
.. The significance of the ASAT moratorium when combined with the
"restrictive" interpretation of the ABM Treaty is that it makes space
testing of SDI components virtually impossible.
I believe that the ASAT moratorium applies only for this year (since
it was tied to an appropriations bill), and only to the Miniature
Homing Vehicle -- I think that ASAT lasers could be tested, but that
is moot, since that won't happen for a while at any rate.
Secretary Weinberger ... does not consider Paul
Nitze's criterion of the SDI being "cost effective at the margin" to
be essential to the program. Weinberger said in effect that he thinks
the SDI should be funded no matter what it costs, and no matter how
cheaply it can be offset by the Soviets.
The phrase that Abrahmson is now using is that "defenses should be
affordable". As the NY Times put it, to see what DoD considers
affordable, consider the prices it pays for diodes.
... Both Lieutenant General Abrahamson and Richard Perle went on
the record on December 4th as saying that the SDI's primary purpose is
to protect missile silos...
You mean the ultimate purpose of SDI, or something that could be done
"on the way" to a population defense. In any case, could you pls
provide a cite for this?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 16:45 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Soviet violations of treaties...
Gary Chapman made an interesting point in his analysis of SDI that
prompts this question. He noted that
... The Reagan administration ... will begin to retaliate against [Soviet]
violations with "tit-for-tat" violations on the part of the United
States... Some key members of Congress, however, think that the proper
response to Soviet cheating is to actually hold their feet to the fire
and bring them into line with the treaty provisions, instead of
eroding the treaty even further with deliberate U.S. violations.
There is no enforcing agency for treaty compliance. What is the
proper response when one side in fact does violate a treaty? I'm not
happy with the most common answer I have heard.
This common answer says "If they violate a treaty, then you can
withdraw from it." But such an policy does not distinguish between
significant breaches and insignificant breaches, and is thus a club
with very poor resolution -- it is your only weapon, and it is a
drastic one, leaving you with a problem of credibility. The dove also
says "Resolve it in the Standing Consultative Commission." But that
assumes resolution is possible. Certainly the SCC route should be
tried, but what happens when the two parties cannot come to an
agreement in the SCC -- what do you do then?
But the route of "proportionate responses" is just as clearly a losing
battle. They say they are in compliance; we say they are
not. Our proportionate response is by definition a deliberate
violation of the Treaty, and thus we have stated that proportionate
responses are the proper action to take when the Treaty is violated.
This invites the other side to take its own proportionate responses in
reaction to ours.
Should the policy be to accept "substantial compliance" with the
Treaty as adequate? In some ways, yes. But how do you establish when
a "peripheral" violation (or more likely many of them) becomes a
"substantial" violation? Is it possible to establish what is central
and what is peripheral as you write the Treaty? I don't think so.
How do you prevent nibbling away at the edges? Set the limits so that
small violations are strategically insignificant? Good idea, but how
can you establish such a point and formalize it as part of the treaty?
As a person who generically believes in arms control, I am troubled.
Comments from both the left and the right invited.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 86 15:23 PDT
From: DonSmith.PA@Xerox.COM
Re: "A Star Wars Query - Alfred Beebe <BEEBE@USC-ISIB.ARPA>"
I have heard others mention spinning mirrors on warheads as an SDI
countermeasure, and I don't see why they wouldn't work either. Indeed,
there are so many weaknesses of this sort in the SDI systems proposed
thus far (What about cruise missile interception?) that one can't help
but wonder what are the real motives and goals of the promoters of SDI.
I agree with Robert Bowman that taking military control of space is one,
and I believe that the defense contract bonanza is another. The
original rhetoric about a nuclear shield is fading away, and now we hear
more about enhancing deterrence and boosting the economy. A
considerable danger in launching a huge program like this without
sufficient forethought is that it builds so much momentum, in terms of
its involvement of people's careers and of economic sectors, that it
becomes imbedded in the culture and effectively takes on a life of its
own. At that point, those who are committed to it and dependent on it
will develop whatever reasoning that they have to in order to keep the
thing going, and problems like that of the mirrors are brushed aside
(deflected?). It should be clear to us (humans) by now that there is no
ultimate weapon and no ultimate defense, but that instead we face a
never-ending (until the weapons are used) cycle of countermeasures until
we can reach a level of understanding where we and our counterparts
across the water both realize that this cycle is not in either of our
best interests and not in the best interests of world security. Then we
can begin to seek other paths (in earnest, that is), and having observed
the inspiring achievements of the human species to date, I have no
doubts that we can find those paths if we wholeheartedly resolve to do
so.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 86 16:22:08 PDT
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Older missles
The old air-breathing winged missiles like Regulus were indeed dropped
fairly completely in favor of rocket-powered ballistic missiles. Partly
this was just the attractions of the new technology (far higher speed
and much more difficult interception) and its sheer newness obscuring
the virtues of the older approach. But partly it was recognition that
the old air-breathers weren't really very good. They were essentially
unmanned kamikaze bombers: they were almost the size of manned aircraft
and flew at normal aircraft altitudes. This meant that they were easier
to intercept, since they started out equal and weren't as clever, and they
were also not much less expensive to build. They were also costly to
train with (since they were not recoverable), and required accommodations
comparable to those of aircraft (except for needing a launcher instead
of a runway). Finally, the old vacuum-tube control and guidance systems
were so troublesome that a new generation was clearly going to be needed
to make the whole idea work, and ballistic missiles looked like a much
better way to spend the money.
The basic concept has only really become viable for strategic missiles
with the newer technology that has reduced size and weight spectacularly
(in particular, aircraft can now carry handfuls of cruise missiles, whereas
in the old days *submarines* carrying one or two Regulus were marginal at
best) and made extremely-low-altitude flight practical.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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