ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (02/04/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, February 3, 1986 5:43PM
Volume 6, Issue 41
Today's Topics:
Force Ratio NATO/WP
Bullet in head/Nuclear Winter
SDI - Architecture study
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Date: Mon, 3 Feb 86 00:22:49 pst
From: C-in-C.FARTH-NAG@camelot, 9668970 <stout@camelot>
Subject: Force Ratio NATO/WP
A few issues back someone wrote to ARMS-D stating that the ratio of
NATO troops to Warsaw Pact troops that could be brought to bear against
each other was 1.06:1 in favor of us. Sorry to have got onto this
question so late but I was wondering precisely what was the basis for
this statement. Specifically, which nations were included in this estimate
and what US forces were assumed to be brought to bear? It seems to
me that the number of variables in the problem is large enough that
a simple number just won't do.
--Mark
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Date: Mon, 3 Feb 86 07:28 MST
From: RNeal@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Bullet in head/Nuclear Winter
First, I don't expect us to launch a first strike, so I do not see the
"bullet in the head" approach as being useful in that case. Second, if
I believe in nuclear winter, then shooting the button pusher would serve
no purpose at all, except maybe to remove said individual from the pain
of slow death.
It would be very hard for someone on the brink of something like that
not to hang on to whatever hope they had (ie. I would risk nuclear
winter rather than risk surviving the bullet). I am not 100% convicced
that nuclear winter in unsurvivable (assuming it happens at all), but
being shot in the head approaches 100% unsurvivability.
Now if we could have men standing behind *their* button pushers to shoot
them just before they push the button, you might have something...
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From: mcvax!doc.ic.ac.uk!cdsm@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 86 17:08:02 GMT
Subject: SDI - Architecture study
I would like some reaction to a statement made by Sir Ronald
Mason, ex-chief scientific advisor to the British Government
('77-'83) at the Pugwash meeting in London in December. I
haven't seen any discussion on this and it does seem important.
He argued that the design of the battle management system for
the SDI would be the first real infringement of the ABM treaty.
While the treaty does not ban basic research, any work on the
system as a whole can only be regarded as 'development', hence
the whole architecture study is a problem for the ABM treaty.
He does seem to have a point. Any reactions?
--- Chris Moss, Dept of Computing, Imperial College, London.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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