ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (11/27/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Wednesday, November 27, 1985 3:21PM
Volume 5, Issue 31
Today's Topics:
How WW3 may start in early 1986
C-5 Drug smuggling
Arms Control and Human Rights
Model of arms-race and resource allocation
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Date: 26 Nov 1985 1210-PST
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: How WW3 may start in early 1986
(1) Libyan-backed terrorists hijack a commercial airliner.
(2) Egyptions storm the plane, but goof it up and lots of passengers
are killed when the terrorists firebomb the inside of the plane.
(3) To save face, Egypt threatens war against Libya.
-- ALL THE ABOVE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED --
(4) Libya threatens back, and just like the 1967 "6-day war" between
Egypt and Israel where threats flew back and forth until neither side
could back down and avoid war, the verbal barrage turns into a war.
(5) Other nations who have hated Libya for years use this pretext to
join Egypt in the war. The PLO and other anti-Egyption nations join
on Libya's side.
(6) USA and USSR get edgy about the whole mess, and disagree about
who is responsible and how it should be halted. But they avoid getting
directly involved.
(7) Somebody nukes somebody. France, which was previously siding with
the country that got nuked, now is drawn in when that country pleads
with France to please retaliate with France's nukes.
(8) Now USSR gets on full nuclear alert because of France, and USA
gets on full nuclear alert because of USSR's alert.
(9) Something random happens at this inopportune time, almost any excuse will do at this point.
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Date: Tue, 26 Nov 85 14:16:34 pst
From: Gary Chapman <PARC-CSLI!chapman@parcvax>
Subject: C-5 Drug smuggling
Whew, I'd like to know about those smugglers using C-5s. I imagine you could
bring in the annual supply for the entire United States in one haul with one
of those planes. I flew in a C-5 over the Gulf of Mexico, coming into the
Florida panhandle (on a military mission), and believe me, you'd have to be
deaf, dumb and blind to miss one of those things. I recall it was like Eglin
Air Force Base was coming up to meet us instead of us descending to land.
Tho things are hug
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Date: Tue, 26 Nov 85 17:09:20 EST
From: Michael_Joseph_Edelman%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Arms Control and Human Rights
>Date: Mon, 25 Nov 85 02:53:57 PST
>From: ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
>Subject: Arms Control and Human Rights
>...In this respect, the Solviet government is infinitely more
>sensible than our own. There are areas, fundamentally related to arms control,
>which we refuse to compromise on, and yet they are still willing to negotiate.
>They are specifically opposed to the SDI proposal,
>which borders on violating the spirit (if not the letter)
>of an established treaty. Reagan is not willing
>to budge an inch on this, and yet the Solviets
>are still talking about arms reductions. Only talk so far, but a start.
>
>karl dahlke ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad
I think this statement overlooks an important point. Going into
negotiations, it is of the utmost import to 1) not give away anything
that can be used as a negotiable item and 2) not disclose your
strategy beforehand. I have a suspicion that Reagan may well
negotiate a ban on *deployment* of SDI (or at least a limit of
some sort), and is more concerned with maintaining the right to
continue research. Why? Well, first because we want make sure we
have a potential capability at least equal to that which the
USSR may have developed (they've had an SDI-type program for at
least 15 years, according to defecting scientists) and to allow us to
build a functional, deployed ASAT system to counter the USSR's
primative ASAT.
Referring back to my original points, I'm sure that the USSR is well
aware of them (they do a lot of good game theory work) and that
they are certainly not disclosing their negotiating strategy ahead
of time either.
-Mike
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Date: Wed, 27 Nov 85 11:01:28 pst
From: mikes@AMES-NAS.ARPA (Peter Mikes)
Re: Model of arms-race and resource allocation
I suppose most people on this net are familiar with model of two
nations involved in an arms race, which was introduced by Richardson in
1938. The model consists of two simple 1st order linear differential equations
and produces the so called 'cone of deterrence' which corresponds to the MAD
equilibrium. I have recently came across an article which extends that
model by incorporating the Nash's Bargaining Problem.
The extended model seems to reflect an essential aspect of actual situation,
namely the fact that weapons improve nations bargaining position in issues
concerning the international allocation of the resources. It has a 'sense of
direction' while the pure Richardson can go either GRIT or to escalation.
I will now give a short non-mathematical paraphrase of the model, as I
think it may provide some useful concepts for future discussions. If there is
some interest in this approach to the topic of this net, we can proceed to
more accurate description/analysis of the model.
Model by: D.L Brito, M.D. Intriligator: " Strategic Weapons and the
allocation of International Rights" in (Math. Systems in Int. Rela-
tions Research. IBSN 0-275-55620-4. Gillespie et al eds.)
Model assumes a sequence of 'crises' which occur at times t[1], t[2],...t[r],
At each crisis the nations ( e.g. nation1 and nation2) involved in the con-
frontation propose a distribution of a scarce resource and also reassess the
'proper' level of armaments for the next period. The nations are attempting
to maximize a 'criterion function' which means they want to consume the re-
source while avoiding the cost of the conflict (war). It is this kind of the
trade-off, which (seems to me) is providing some resemblance to reality.
The allocation of resources is made at each 'crisis point' by means
of the game, which "reflects the essential features of brinkmanship":
After the allocation of the resource is proposed, each country declares a
probability that it will 'insist' on it's proposal. (That also means the pro-
bability of war - if the other side does not yield). There is a penalty T
associated with occurence of war, which depends on the amount of weapons
W1, W2 which the two nations posses at the time of the crisis.
That's all.
Using standard, and apparently reasonable techniques of the game theory
the above given assumptions lead to a stable 'equilibrium point' both
for amount of weapons and allocation of the resource. The dynamics of the
model reflects the fact that 'resource' is available either for consumption or
greater weapon accumulation and that amount of weapons affects the
Threat Point T which determines allocation through process of the negotiation.
Model's conclusion is anti-intuitive:
It is saying that two nation act rationally, when enganging in a very
dangerous game which can lead to a limited nuclear conflict. To (my)
intuition such behaviour looks foolish. Yet - the model seems
to reflect the essential dynamics of the real arms race - So
Is the model wrong? Or is the intuition wrong ? or what?
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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