ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/15/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Wednesday, January 15, 1986 9:29AM
Volume 6, Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Space Invaders/Offensive Star Wars lasers
Late comment on Citizens' Summit
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Date: Tue, 14 Jan 86 23:23:46 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Space Invaders/Offensive Star Wars lasers
... 'in a matter of hours, a laser defense
system powerful enough to cope with the ballistic missile threat
can also destroy the enemy's major cities by fire. ... the
attack time for each city being only a matter of minutes. ...'
From: Michael_Joseph_Edelman
This seems a little doubtful to me; there's a great deal of difference
between destroying a warhead- which requires a lot of energy- and
setting cities afire.
Lasers aren't meant for warhead destruction: they are rather for boost
phase intercept. Realize that a booster takes about 1 kilo-joule per
square cm (now) to 10 kj/cm^2 (future hardened boosters) to kill it; a
chemical D-F laser can reach to sea level, and DF lasers are under
investigation for boost phase intercept. Also realize that it takes
perhaps 100 j/cm^2 to ignite a tar roof with a nuclear weapon. The
difference between these two situations is that a nuke exposes the
surface in tenths of a sec, while the laser will operate over seconds.
Still, with minimal re-ratiation, it is plausible that a high-power
chemical laser could ignite a city.
And that still leaves the somewhat thorny problem for the
attacker of retaliation from ICBMs in their rather laser-resistant
concrete and earth silos.
But SDI will eliminate the threat of nuclear ballistic missiles.
Therefore, there won't be any ICBM's, right?
Seems like another attempted end-run by
the anti-SDI group.
Who insist on taking the President at face value.
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Date: Wed, 15 Jan 86 00:31:17 PST
From: walton%Deimos@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu
Subject: Late comment on Citizens' Summit
The following excerpts from Howard Rosenberg's review of "A Citizens'
Summit" are reprinted without permission from the Jan. 1 issue of the Los
Angeles Times:
"[A Citizens' Summit] will be telecast on Soviet TV with 'absolutely no
censorship whatsoever,' according to Pozner [moderator in Leningrad], a
Kremlin spokesman who frequently appears on American interview shows. It
should be noted, however, that Americans and Soviets have conflicting
definitions of 'censorship.' In fact, they conflict about a lot of things, as
'A Citizens' Summit' shows in its two-hour version on Channel 4.
"It's obvious that we speak different languages, and that doesn't refer
only to Russian and English.
"An American man notes the relative lack of freedom of speech in the
Soviet Union. A Sovieeit man, alluding to the United States, replies:
'Freedom of speech is a great thing, but if no one listens to that freedom,
what is the point?
"An American woman asks if Soviet women who work outside the home must
still be responsible for housework. A Soviet woman replies: 'We have the best
possible conditions to ensure that Soviet women can work in peace.'
"An American man asks about the Kremlin's nuclear intentions. A Soviet
woman replies that the Soviets have promised never to strike the first blow.
'Can one fail to trust such a state?'
"The Soviets hit American faults and the Americans hit Soviet faults.
Unlike the Soviet audience, significantly, the Americans acknowledge their
nation's imperfections.
"Donahue notes that even as he speaks, picketers are outside the station
protesting a decision to exclude relatives of Soviet dissidents from the
Seattle audience. And there on the screen is a live picture of the protestors.
"Several members of the Seattle audience allude to American deficiencies.
'It's not as free here as people would like to make you think,' says an
American woman. 'A man in a Green Beret uniform protests Sylvester Stallone's
hawkishness: 'He wishes to speak for people like me. But I know the reality
of war.' The same man equates America's Vietnam War with the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan and urges opposition to 'the wrongness of war' by
either side.
"But the Soviet audience acknowledges only American 'wrongness.'
"And when an American asks for reaction to the Soviets' infamous shooting
down of a Korean jetliner, it is Pozner the Kremlin spokesman who fields the
question, not a member of his audience.
"Marilyn O'Reilly, who has had vast experience in selecting audiences for
Donahue's own syndaction series, chose the Seattle group and helped pick the
Leningrad audience.
"Are some of the Soviets KGB plants? Kremlin mouthpieces? 'How can we
show you that we're not all from the secret police?' a Soviet woman asks
American skeptics. Most of the Soviets {\it look} as ordinary as the members
of the Seattle audience. They don't resemble the Soviets of 'Rocky IV' or the
Soviet buffoons in our TV commercials. Nor, in fact, does the Seattle
audience resemble the {\it Americans} in our TV commercials.
"Are some members of the Soviet audience afraid to criticize their
government on TV for fear of reprisal? Would we really expect them to tell us
if they were?
"Take 'A Citizens' Summit' for what it is, a gawker's delight above all
else. So {\it that's} what they look and sound like."
Steve Walton
walton%deimos@hamlet.caltech.edu
swalton@caltech.bitnet
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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