ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/05/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, January 4, 1986 11:08PM Volume 6, Issue 8.3 Today's Topics: see #8.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 14:32:45 pst From: Gary Chapman <PARC-CSLI!chapman@glacier> Subject: Beyond War I am willing to be critical of the organization Beyond War. Although on the whole I think the organization is benign, I also don't think it's constructive, either. War will never be eliminated from the human condition as a *potential* activity. That is, it will never be made simply unthinkable or impossible. I talk to the leaders of Beyond War all the time, because I am the Director of a national peace organization and their national offices are just down the street from me. I am frequently astonished at what they tell me. I was recently told, for example, that by pursuing the Beyond War program, we could make great strides in ending the Iran-Iraq war. What does one say to suchn incredibly naive and optimistic person? I say in Tehran there are millions of people who go to a public square and flagellate themselves in front of a huge fountain that pumps blood-red water. In Iran there have been systematic campaigns of elimination against whole populations of people, such as the Bahais. What on earth would th the average Shi'ite in Iran have in common with a bunch of Americans who sit around plush, middle class living rooms and talk about world peace? The Beyond War headquarters here in Palo Alto has generated a tremendous follow- ing of supporters in this area, and they are usually at any meeting of any peace-related activity. Their message is that if we will only "communicate" with the Soviet Union, that we should be able to work out our differences and live in peace. This message is almost completely empty of content. We do "communicate" withhe Soviet Union all the time, every day in fact, on a v variety of issues. We simply don't agree with them, nor is it likely that we will in the near future. Anyone who has ever spoken to a Soviet official (or watched the "Citizens' Summit on TV) knows how frustrating it is to talk with an ideological mouthpiece. When Soviet officials say that the tanks had to roll into Prague, or Budapest, or Kabul, in order to "save socialism," and save the people of those unfortunate countries from dreaded U.S. imperialism, one can do nothing but look at them in mute wonder. The admonition that we must "communicate" with these people sounds ludicrous. I am not one to equate the Soviet Union with the Nazi government of Germany, because I think that does a great disservice to the heroism of the Soviet people in fighting fascism. But few people would disagree that war was the only way to deal with Hitler (or Japan, for that matter). Why people would think that this cannot possibly happen again is Beyond Me. Gary Chapman ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 22:33:04 EST From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ at Forsythe>@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Rejoinders | | | From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ at Forsythe> | | 2. LEGITIMATE DEFENSE NEEDS: I think it dangerous, and erroneous, | to restrict the analysis of "legitimate defense needs" to categories | of hardware such as subs, carriers, .... The command and control | capabilities themselves may be characterized as "illegitimate", as I | allege with LOWC. | |You have it wrong. The problem is not with the hardware, but rather |with the missions they are supposed to perform. We may argue about |whether LOW is the right way to insure missile invulnerability, but we |agree that the mission of protecting our retaliatory force is |legitimate. Fair comment. But the talk has been mostly about hardware. I wanted to make this "mission-generalization" concept explicit. The analysis must then first identify the defense missions, then the operational systems that support them. There are two sources of "illegitimacy". First, can a mission itself be "illegitimate"? (I would suggest that a mission to maintain superiority in some arenas of war is illegitimate, because its adoption by hostile nations implies an endless arms race.) Second, the operational procedures to achieve missions may be "illegitimate". (Use of weapons banned by international law, etc. ERCS was a bad example, but it's easy to imagine a battle management system preprogrammed to escalate conflict, for example you fire one at me then I'll fire 20 at you and 10 at your friends.) If superiority at sea is a legitimate defense mission, then aircraft carriers are obviously a legitimate defense need, although (like ERCS) they may be a dumb expense. | | 3. THE WEAKNESS OF INTERNATIONAL TREATIES: (Response to Richard | Foy's alleged violation of Limited Test Ban Treaty.) Related to the | above is the simple fact that the very possession of nuclear weapons | has been declared illegal by the United Nations. This declaration | is, however, not construed as BINDING on U.N. members. | |If it's not binding, there are no laws to be violated, and nothing is |illegal. | That's my point - the weakness of international law. A basic premise of even such law as is "binding" is that nevertheless each State has the prerogative to construe the language of a treaty however it pleases, and to change its interpretation at any time. | 4. LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR: Robert Maas suggests this is not *actual* | U.S. policy. It was in 1945, and first-use is the foundation of | NATO's present defense plans. | |First use is NOT the same thing as limited nuclear war. Ike's massive |retaliation was also "first use", and it has nothing to do with |limited war. First-use and limited nuclear war are not the same, but you can't credibly pretend to have one without pretending to have the other. I'm afraid the Pershing IIs and presidential orders leave no doubt that US plans include limited nuclear options (see, e.g. Reagan's 1982 PD/NSC-53 which requires "responsive support for operational control of the armed forces, even during a protracted nuclear conflict.") ------------------------------ Date: Sat 4 Jan 86 19:36:57-PST From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@Epic> Subject: Re: Testing SDI Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> From: Jim McGrath <MCGRATH at OZ.AI.MIT.EDU> What if, after suitable advance notice, the SDI system was fully activated and targeted against one of our periodic meteor swarms? Interesting example, but problematic. No kill assessment for one, under some circumstances. Entirely different signatures for another. It would test some aspects of the system on a system wide level (such as detection and tracking), and would even provide good kill estimates in some cases (KE weapons and small targets). But as I said: Meteors are just a casual example. My point is that the costs of partial (but system wide) testing does not have to lie with the targets (which many people seem to assume) as much as with weapons discharge - which may be quite manageable. But if the tests are to be realistic, then the right targets are essential, especially since a counter-measure is to try to fool with the targets that the defense sees. True, but remember that the major cost of the target simulation is in the boost phase. Once the targets are in sub-orbit, it makes no difference whether they were fired independently by hundreds of expensive boosters or were accelerated from orbital velocity, after having been place there originally through more economical means. Terminal phase tests are especially easy to do this way. Only boost phase is intrinsically expensive. (That's two messages where I've come up with approaches to problems that work on all phases except boost phase. Although initially attractive, perhaps concentrating more on mid-course and terminal defense will ultimately prove more beneficial.) Jim ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************
ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (01/05/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, January 4, 1986 11:08PM
Volume 6, Issue 8.3
Today's Topics:
see #8.1
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 22:36:54 EST
From: prandt!mikes at AMES-NAS.ARPA (Peter O. Mikes)@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Re: Conflict Resolution
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Violence and war is the means of last resort to impose your will.
The point is you have leaders/nations unwilling to take "no" for an
answer; as long as you have that, you will have war and armed forces.
Comment by Peter Mikes: mikes@ames-nas or Informatics corp:(415)964-9900
It is not a LAST resort. The THREAT of war is the only currently working
method for allocation of the global resources. Surely leaders/nations
must be able to say 'no' sometimes.
I said that leaders can't TAKE no; surely they can give it. If
Country A wants something from Country B, and Country B says no (after
all other measures have failed), Country A can either go to war to
take it from B, or accept the no.
You cannot split hairs about who is GIVING the 'no' and who is NOT TAKING it,
without including the nature of the deal in the package.
War results as an 'unfortunate last resort consequence' when both parties
choose to say 'no' to a compromise -- More exactly:
Nation A proposes a distribution of a scarce resource (a deal) and
nation B can either accept it or propose another ("more fair") deal.
There can be several iterations - which may be of psychological interest -
but end-result can be modeled by a game:
After the allocation of the resource is proposed and nature of the deal
clarified, each country declares a probability that it will 'insist' on
it's proposal.
When both nations insist, i.e. when both said 'no' to the proposal of the
other party, then they must resort to war - to save their face,
maintain their credibility and to keep their dominos up. There is kind
of 'reaction time' in starting and ending war. Historically,
during the war nations used to change their perception and sometime
leadership and so the game continued after the war - same game with
new content..
Do we agree that this is a reasonable representation of the typical
and current state of affairs?
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Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 22:38:48 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: conflict resolution
I accept your correction. When both say no, then war is a last
resort, but not because they need to save face; war happens when the
have-not insists on having.
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Date: Sat 4 Jan 86 19:24:35-PST
From: Jim McGrath <J.JPM@Epic>
Subject: Re: Putting a Man in the Loop
Reply-to: mcgrath%mit-oz@mit-mc.arpa
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
From: Jim McGrath <MCGRATH at OZ.AI.MIT.EDU>
The model to think of is a sophisticated computer game. The
human operator(s) would take care of truly strange cases
(rising moons, flocks of interplanetary geese)..
But the major problem is not the things that the computer isn't
sure about, but rather the things that it is sure about that are
not true. How would the human ever know to intervene?
I thought a bit about that, and have a suitable elaboration.
Basically, you require a "two key" system, with the computer holding
one key and a human operator/monitor another. This is primarily for
the "go/no go" decision. 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.
This takes care of the computer going off half cocked. If you are
worried about the computer missing an actual attack, you can now set
the sensitivity low, trusting to the human monitor to not activate
when appropriate.
Actually, this is too simple. What you really want is to have the
hardware/software under a set of human operators, perhaps partitioned
to provide zone coverage. The humans act as before, mainly as
checkpoints for activation decisions, overseeing strategy, sending
expert information to the computers as the situation unfolds so that
the software does not have to be a tactical genius. Now a set of
human supervisors sit on top of the operators. They have another
"key," and so can break ties on activation decisions (or even override
lower level decisions). Their other missions are to advise operators
on developing strategy, keep the command authorities informed, and to
act as "free safety." That is, they will have the authority to
override operator commands so that targets that find seams in the
zones (or similarly defy the operator/computer teams) will be
targetted for attack. Normally they will access information at a much
higher level than an operator (the former will have to deal with
thousands of targets - the latter tens of low hundreds).
Other concepts can be advanced: advance/retard the ease of a go/no go
decision according to alert status and the like. The main point is
that a man in the loop is a big win, since you get a proprogrammed
general purpose computer which can take care of those "higher level"
decisions. Response time is not a concern - seconds are not vital if
you have 20 minutes. Only for boost phase interception do you run
into difficulties.
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 86 22:45:25 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Testing SDI
From: Jim McGrath <MCGRATH at OZ.AI.MIT.EDU>
remember that the major cost of the target simulation is in
the boost phase. Once the targets are in sub-orbit, it makes no
difference whether they were fired independently by hundreds of
expensive boosters or were accelerated from orbital velocity, after
having been place there originally through more economical means.
Terminal phase tests are especially easy to do this way. Only boost
phase is intrinsically expensive.
I agree with your technical point. But successful boost phase is what
SDI is all about. The technology for dealing with mid-course and
terminal is ALREADY here. You need boost phase so that you can thin
out the midcourse and terminal.
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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