ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (12/13/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, December 12, 1985 5:27PM
Volume 5, Issue 56
Today's Topics:
"Beyond reasonable doubt"
"Beyond reasonable doubt"
Reply to Hoffman
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 85 19:28:46 EST
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ at Forsythe>@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: "Beyond reasonable doubt"
REPLY TO 12/09/85 19:43 FROM LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA: The nitty-gritty
> The adequacy of verification and the size of probability of
> accidental launch are one and the same thing.
| No, at least not by your definition of probability. You proposed and
| I accepted the measure of MTTW as your probability of accidental
| launch.
|
| The adequacy of verification is fundamentally different, since it
| refers to the STANDARD OF EVIDENCE, which becomes relevant BEFORE a
| launch decision (bad or good) is made. The decision DEPENDS on
| verification, but is NOT synonymous with it.
> Much of what I say might ultimately be litigatable only on the basis
> of a requirement of CERTAINTY of an attack warning.
| What is certainty? When I asked about the adequacy of verification,
| this is what I meant. What evidence would you consider adequate to
| support a launch decision by the President? Additionally, whatever
| your answer is, what makes you believe that that information could not
| be faked.
There's a one-one correspondence between all these things. The
higher the probability, the longer the MTTW. The STANDARD OF
EVIDENCE is also expressable in terms of "degree of proof", or
probability. Your comment has stimulated a idea for
a standard that would be legally workable. Namely, could the
President ever be sure "BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT" that a warning
of a Minutemen attack was valid? That's the standard I would
say is legally required for a competent retaliatory decision
without declaration of war or prior, actual hostility.
So - do you agree that the Pres., in the short time available,
could never, *beyond reasonable doubt*, be sure of the veracity
of an attack warning? And, specifically, would a radar
confirmation of a satellite warning constitute proof beyond
reasonable doubt?
| The SIOP is a menu of options, from which the President (or
| whoever) can choose.
Is not the SIOP *now and always* in effect? With "peacetime"
options implemented. Is the phrase "executing the SIOP" more
properly "changing the current SIOP option"?
To: LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA
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Date: Tue, 10 Dec 85 21:53:08 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN at MIT-MC.ARPA>@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: "Beyond reasonable doubt"
The STANDARD OF
EVIDENCE is also expressable in terms of "degree of proof", or
probability. Your comment has stimulated a idea for
a standard that would be legally workable. Namely, could the
President ever be sure "BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT" that a warning
of a Minutemen attack was valid? That's the standard I would
say is legally required for a competent retaliatory decision
without declaration of war or prior, actual hostility.
I agree with the principle of "beyond a reasonable doubt", indeed, I
was assuming that all along. But that's not what I intended by the
"standard of evidence" -- I chose poor terminology. Rather, I mean
"What evidence would you consider adequate to inform the President" in
some hypothetical scenario. The President hears some words on the
telephone at 3 AM; what words would he have to hear, and what other
actions should he be able to take before he can competently make the
decision to launch?
So - do you agree that the Pres., in the short time available,
could never, *beyond reasonable doubt*, be sure of the veracity
of an attack warning?
No, I don't agree, because the phrase means different things at
different times. For example, given the presence of BMEWS and IR
satellite data indicating Soviet launch, it is much more likely that
an attack is actually underway if shooting in Europe has already
started than if all is quiet, since failure in the warning system is
to first approximation decoupled from war in Europe.
And, specifically, would a radar
confirmation of a satellite warning constitute proof beyond
reasonable doubt?
Maybe. See above.
| The SIOP is a menu of options, from which the President (or
| whoever) can choose.
Is not the SIOP *now and always* in effect? With "peacetime"
options implemented. Is the phrase "executing the SIOP" more
properly "changing the current SIOP option"?
No. The SIOP is as I described it. There is no "peacetime option" in
the SIOP; the SIOP is a list of forces and times of attack. When the
Pres decides he wants to use some forces, he looks up in a book the
various options available to him, and says something like "Execute MAO
(Major Attack Option) #4, sub-option 5, but withhold attacks on
targets X, A, and Q in that target set."
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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