ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (03/03/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, March 3, 1986 12:23AM
Volume 6, Issue 59
Today's Topics:
Moderator's comments on SDI speech in ARMS-D V6/57 (2 messages)
depressed-trajectory weapons
Cooperative verification of arms quotas
two general comments from Friedman
Galileo plutonium
depressed-trajectory weapons
History
Major Warden's talk
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Date: Friday, 28 February 1986 16:21-EST
From: Ben Yalow <YBMCU%CUNYVM.BITNET at WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Re: Moderator's comments on SDI speech in ARMS-D V6/57
In your announcement of the speech on SDI, you annotated the
announcement with the following:
[Note from Moderator: This man is worth going to hear. If you are an
SDI enthusiast, he will confirm all of your beliefs about SDI. If you
are an SDI opponent, he will illustrate to you how little contact the
SDI Office has with reality.]
I don't think that those comments are fully appropriate in your
moderator hat. They tend to be rather semantically loaded (Note that
the pro-SDI people have "your beliefs", while the anti-SDI position
has better "contact with reality".) While statements like this are
fully reasonable coming from LIN (your personal personna), I feel
somewhat uncomfortable seeing them from Moderator.
I sent this to you, rather than to the list, because I'm not sure that
this could go to the list without starting several rounds of flaming,
rather than meaningful consideration on your part. Feel free to
send this off if you feel it is more appropriate there.
Ben Yalow
YBMCU%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
YBMCU%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
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Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1986 18:19 EST
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Moderator's comments on SDI speech in ARMS-D V6/57
I *tried* to make my comments neutral; I failed, huh? (It was late,
and I was tired...) The spirit of your point is well-taken, and I
apologize for any slight to either side.
My intent was to note that Worden is a man who inspires true
believers; SDI opponents regard him as being totally disconnected from
technical reality, and are often dumbfounded at his claims. Both
opponents and proponents should see him in action, but for entirely
different reasons.
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Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 14:36:19 PST
From: prandt!mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA (Peter O. Mikes)
Re: Cooperative verification of arms quotas
Lin's proposal is technically elegant, but has two weak points:
1) It assumes that all sites (silos) are known.
Explain why the other side cannot build a new underground site,
(accessed by few long tunnels) invisibly to the satellites. (E.g. by
assembling the missile from little pieces in abandoned mines).
2) Proposal concerns the symptoms - not the underlying causes of the race.
True - it does not pretend to do more. Yet, when the patients life is
in danger, we should not waste time on treating the symptoms only.
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Date: Sat, 1 Mar 86 08:21:33 EST
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: depressed-trajectory weapons
> How does a defense handle nuclear artillery shells?
By keeping the artillery units at arm's reach, primarily. Artillery is
effectively a cheap short-range ballistic-missile system, with the same
sorts of interception possibilities and difficulties. Artillery with
enough range for strategic bombardment is (a) uncommon and (b) much the
same problem as small ballistic missiles. Systems that can shoot down
missiles can shoot down artillery shells, as witness direct-hit interceptions
of five-inch shells by Seawolf missiles.
Barring some really strange breakthrough, I don't think anyone (not even
Reagan) realistically expects nuclear weapons to vanish from the battlefield.
What might be possible is to confine them largely to the battlefield (where
the combination of short ranges, minimal warning times, and dispersed targets
makes effective interception impractical).
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 86 10:22:20 EST
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: two general comments from Friedman
Two more general observations from Friedman's "Carrier Air Power":
Highly developed automation is often recognized as being
equivalent to highly developed maintenance problems.
History is a guide, but Western governments have a habit
of imagining that somehow it will not be repeated, particularly
when large sums of money are involved.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 86 11:08:10 EST
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Galileo plutonium
Paul Dietz writes, in part:
> ... A solution to the radiation problem
> might be to launch the radioisotope source separately and assemble in
> orbit (probably not feasible for current probes) ...
What probably would be feasible would be what was done for the isotope
cartridges the later Apollo missions carried for their lunar-surface
experiment packages: The isotope slug goes up as part of the same payload,
but inside an armored cask. At deployment time, the astronauts transfer it
from the cask to the generator. This would mean that NASA would have to
get over some of its fetish about avoiding in-space assembly, though.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 86 21:12:30 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: depressed-trajectory weapons
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry at seismo.CSS.GOV
Re: depressed-trajectory weapons
> How does a defense handle nuclear artillery shells?
By keeping the artillery units at arm's reach, primarily.
Huh? I don't understand this phrase. Do you mean "in range"?
Systems that can shoot down
missiles can shoot down artillery shells, as witness direct-hit
interceptions
of five-inch shells by Seawolf missiles.
Do you have more info on this claim? What are the circumstances etc
of these intercepts?.
What might be possible is to confine them [nuclear weapons, right?]
largely to the battlefield (where
the combination of short ranges, minimal warning times, and dispersed
targets
makes effective interception impractical).
Wait a minute. I thought you said above that you *can* handle
artillery shells. I agree with your latter statement; that short
range, minimal warning time etc make intercept impractical.
------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 1 March 1986 10:40-EST
From: ihnp4!abnji!nyssa at seismo.CSS.GOV
To: arms-d at mit-mc.arpa
Re: History
>On Sunday, ABC aired a program [...] in which the point was made that the
>US was the first world power that never wanted to be a world power, that
>in fact if world domination was our plan, we could have accomplished it
>after WWII. Instead [...] we instituted the Marshall Plan.
Come now, we're not the only ones who ever refrained from conquest.
In the 2nd Macedonian war the Romans under T. Quinctius Flaminus came to
the aid of the Greeks (esp. Rhodes, Pergamum, Athens) against Philip V,
who was asserting Macedonian hegemony. Flaminus declared the independence
of Greece cities and the Romans withdrew in 194 BC. (In 148, after the 3rd
Macedonian war, Macedonia became a Roman province.)
Going back somewhat further, the Delian League was formed by Athens (inc.
Aristeides "the Just") as a free and equal association against the Persians
in 477 BC. This became the basis for the Athenian empire, destroyed in the
Poloponnesian War.
In our time, the Soviets like to point out that they have withdrawn their
forces from Austria and Finland.
*** This was sent to me from burl!icase!xanth!uvacs!mac (Alex Colvin) ***
James
------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 1 March 1986 21:34:56 EST
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Major Warden's talk
Contrary to your (Herb's) statements, both times that Major Warden talked
here (once in a debate with Noel Gaylor), he was careful not to make any
obviously bogus statements, particularly when speaking last fall. He stated
that the goal of SDI was deterrence enhancement, and termed the idea of a
population defense anytime soon "crazy." In response to a question, he said
that any population defense would only come about due to the fact that some
defended military targets would be in cities. He said that it was
ultraconservative politicians pushing the population defense idea, not SDIO.
He emphasized that the non-nuclear nature of the system, trying to
disconnect the X-ray laser work at Livermore from SDIO. He discussed the
SDI research in the context of the arms control negotiations. He said that
any SDI system must meet Paul Nitze's requirements of being cheaper at the
margin, robust, and survivable. I don't know how widely his opinions are
shared in SDIO.
You and I may disagree with many of his statements, but I believe these
mostly have to do with policy, rather than technical feasibility. The
system as he described it would be considered a success if it could destroy
a non-trivial fraction of the ICBM warheads launched. This of course
drastically lowers the technical requirements compared to a 99% effective
system. It also means that the system needn't be kept on a hair-trigger
lest some weapons leak through. His attitude was that a system with the
same quality as current strategic C3 and weapon systems would be sufficient.
Based on these talks, I believe the SDIO itself is on a sound scientific
basis, although misguided. There is a separate issue that what gets widely
advertised (nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete) is not the above.
P.S. I believe the name is Major Simon Warden, not Worden.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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