ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/13/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, January 12, 1986 10:21PM
Volume 6, Issue 20
Today's Topics:
Aegis reliability & Testing in the Military
Offensive Star Wars lasers
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Date: Sun 12 Jan 1986 10:40:32 EST
From: Paul Dietz <dietz%slb-doll.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Aegis reliability & Testing in the Military
You can't claim Aegis has been fully tested, because it hasn't been
tested in a realistic environment (that is, in an actual carrier
battle group facing intelligent opponents). History tells us that no
weapons system or strategy can be evaluated properly short of actual
battle. Tests too often reveal only the biases of the investigators,
and often fail to accurately simulate what the opponent will actually
do.
I've often felt getting around this conflict of interest (those in
charge of developing weapons/tactics are the same who test the tactics)
is the most important single thing the US military can do to become
more effective. My (admittedly radical) proposal is to break the
military into several parallel organizations with the same functions,
and have simulated competitions between the organizations. Indeed,
why not privatize the whole defense business? This would break DOD's
weapons monopsony and make the establishment of a neutral judging
organization easier (perhaps Peter Uberoff (sp?) could run it).
Of course, if we're not careful "hostile takeover" could acquire an
entirely new meaning...
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Date: Sun, 12 Jan 86 11:00:10 pst
From: "Dave Caulkins; Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; 415-322-3778" <cdp!caulkins@glacier>
Subject: Offensive Star Wars lasers
>From an article in the 12 Jan 86 San Jose Mercury (front page):
"Laser weapons being designed as part of ... [SDI] ... could
more easily be used to incinerate enemy cities than to protect
the United States against Soviet missiles ...
The study, which was produced by R&D Associates [LA] ... cites
data indicating that '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 beung only a matter of minutes. ...'
Lasers 'have the potential of initiating massive urban fires and
even of destroying the enemy's major cities by fire in a matter
of hours,' according to the article [in the current issue of
Physics and Society, a publication of the American Physical
Society] by Caroline L. Herzenberg, a government physicist at
the Argonne National Laboratory. 'Such mass fires might be
expected to generate smoke in amounts comparable to the amounts
generated in some major nuclear exchange scenarios.' ... That
could cause 'a climatic disaster similar to nuclear winter,' ...
'The free electron laser, the excimer laser, and the deuterium
fluoride chemical laser ... all can go through the atmosphere
and cause fires.' ...
'The lasers can be empolyed in a manner not contemplated by the
SDI,' cautioned Albert A. Latter and Ernest A. Martinelli, who
wrote the eight-page R&D Associates study and are highly
regarded advocates of a stronger U.S. defense. 'Specifically,
they can be targeted against the same entities the were designed
to protect: the cities.
After spending hundreds of billions of dollars we would be back
where we started from: deterrence by retaliation. Our cities
would be hostage to lasers instead of nuclear weapons,' the
report said. ..."
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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