ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) (10/26/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Friday, October 25, 1985 4:30PM
Volume 5, Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Administrative screw-up
Augustine's Laws
Delayed notes on power and change
Speak truth to power
Drell on Star Wars
Nuclear Terrorism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: arms-d-request@mit-mc.arpa
re: screw-up
messages that people have sent to arms-d since it was restarted have
been lost. Please re-submit; I think the mailling protocol on this
end has been fixed.
Undigestifying should also work now.
Sorry: I'm new at this...
------------------------------
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Message-Id: <8507171408.AA29035@UCB-VAX.ARPA>
Date: 17 Jul 85 06:39:30 CDT (Wed)
To: arms-d@mit-mc.ARPA
Subject: Augustine's Laws
New book (well, not really new, but first time I'd seen it) that I
highly recommend: Augustine's Laws, by Norman R. Augustine. Order
from American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Attn:
Marketing Dept, 1633 Broadway, NYC 10019, cost $19.97, M/C and Visa
accepted.
Augustine is currently president of Martin Marietta Denver Aerospace,
and has been various other things including chairman of the Defence
Science Board and Assistant Undersecretary of Defence. The book is
a priceless collection of "laws" about aerospace programs and defence
procurement, backed up with graphs and examples. Samples:
Law #13. If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed
on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not
left to chance. [The low man on the totem pole in the US Army
Missile Command has 44 (!!!) layers of management above him.]
Law #29. Executives who do not produce successful results can be
expected to hold on to their jobs only about five years.
On the other hand, those who do produce effective results
can expect to hang on about half a decade.
A graph of weapons-system effectiveness (% of enemy assets destroyed)
vs. unit cost of expandables for that weapons system. You'd like to see
roughly a straight line (for suitable scales), with more expensive
systems giving better results. The actual graph is a cluster of dots
in the upper left and another in the bottom right, corresponding to
gun-based systems and missile-based systems respectively.
Two graphs on development time for aircraft. Time between signing of
contract and first flight is, amazingly enough, roughly constant for
the last forty years. What has gone up, spectacularly, are the times
between agreement on need and signing of contract, and between first
flight and full operational deployment. "If American aerospace products
reflected the process that produces them, we would be the only nation in
the world whose aircraft take birdstrikes from behind."
There's lots more like this. Worth every penny. I may post some more
samples over the next little while.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Received: from bbncch by MIT-MC.ARPA 19 Jul 85 12:54:46 EDT
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 85 10:43:01 EDT
From: Bruce Nevin <bnevin@bbncch.ARPA>
Subject: delayed notes on power and change
To: arms-d@mit-mc.arpa
Cc: bn@bbncch.arpa
Here are two of several messages that I mistakenly sent only to our
local redistribution list.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chris Crawford has designed a game for the MacIntosh called Arms Race.
It is one of a new generation of more `adult' computer games, using
the more `contemplative' Mac mouse rather than a joystick.
Arms Race is almost byzantine in its intricacy and depiction of the
modern world as a playground for superpower intrigues and
manipulations and power brokering among nations; threats and aid to
insurgents are routine and matter of fact. . . . It sees the
geopolitical world of the 1980s as militarily insoluble. . . . The
game's objective is to enhance a country's prestige rather than
bring the world to the brink of nuclear destruction.
(InfoWorld, June 10, 1985, p. 41.)
`It's not a war game,' Crawford says. `It's an unwar game, a simulation
of how to avoid war. You lose if you nuke anybody! But then, how do you
win? That's the problem with the game.'
Random House evidently saw this problem as insurmountable. They reneged
on their arrangement with Crawford and are making him return his $15,000
advance. He is now modifying the game in unspecified ways to try to
satisfy this audience requirement. All this despite acclaim from Mac
users who have seen and tried it, and private requests from writers and
agents for the original `uncut' version of the game.
Question for this list: in our polychrome world, black-or-white
`victories' and `defeats' are more and more unattainable, even in the
storytime simulations of media hype. Is our addictive emotional craving
for closure the fire that keeps our crisis kettle boiling?
Some games have as a basic principle that they not come to closure with
a winner vs. loser(s), and that they always be reopenable. The game of
`conversation' is an example, as is the related game of `discussion'
that we play in forums of this kind. Children (and some putative
adults!) have difficulty with these games. Do nations mirror the least
mature characteristics of their citizens?
Bruce Nevin
bn@bbncch.arpa
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
***** 1821 0
Date: Tue, 7 May 85 10:48:43 EDT
From: Bruce Nevin <bnevin@bbncch>
Subject: speak truth to power
To: arms-d-bbn@bbn-unix
Cc: bn@bbncch
I think Charlie Crummer that you have the essence:
1) Speak simple truths simply.
2) Say them often.
3) Make them burn.
Some matters are complicated, comprising incommensurable facts and
immeasurable figures. To oversimplify complicated matters for demagogic
purposes is reprehensible. However, many important matters in arms
control are not complicated. Salter's `I cut, you choose' proposal is
not complicated.
We all have drawn conclusions about what is possible and what is not
based upon the way our parents or other adults treated us as children.
The one response to Salter's proposal that I have seen on this list
reflects this. Perhaps we should reexamine those conclusions in a way
that invites others to do likewise.
I know of no way that nations can grow out of infantile behavior, other
than that persons in those nations reevaluate conclusions drawn hastily
in childhood. I know experientially that each person making such
changes becomes less reactive and more considered in behavior, and that
these changes are contagious. I believe we have all enjoyed this
contagion at one time or another by being with someone who interpreted
a shared experience more wisely than we ourselves did.
I am not asking you to believe that Soviet leaders therefore must
undergo one or another form of psychological therapy before we can have
meaningful arms control discussions. One might as properly infer that
US leaders and negotiators should participate in extensive therapy
before being granted the power that we confer on them. There are many
grounds aside from arms control for drawing such a conclusion. But
leaders reflect the culture and society that supports them to a greater
extent than they mold it, even in totalitarian states--witness the
resiliance of traditional classes in China.
What this does mean is that we all have a share in the process. I
believe this discussion list is an important part of the process.
Bruce Nevin
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
------------------------------
Received: from USC-ECL.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA 22 Jul 85 10:07:07 EDT
Date: 22 Jul 1985 0704-PDT
From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA
Subject: Drell on Star Wars
To: arms-d@MIT-MC
"Diplomacy, Not Star Wars" by Dr. Sidney Drell, co-director of
SLAC. San Jose Mercury News, July 21, 1985, Page 7, Sect P
"In his Star Wars speech of March 23, 1983 President Reagan held out
hope for a world free of the threat of nuclear retaliation and
challenged the nuclear scientists 'who gave us nuclear weapons' to
'give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.'
The attractiveness of the president's goal must not obscure the
physical realities of nuclear weapons of mass destruction: There is
no serious likelihood of removing the nuclear threat from our cities
and homes in our lifetime or the lifetime of our children.
It is difficult for a responsible scientist to say flatly that a task
is impossible to achieve by technical means without being accused
of being a naysayer. Indeed, many instances can be cited in which
prominent scientists have concluded that a task is impossible, only
to be proved wrong by future discoveries.
One should recognize, however, that the deployment of an effective
nationwide defense is not a single technical achievement but the
evolution of an extensive and exceedingly complex SYSTEM.
Furthermore this system must work reliably in a hostile environment
against a determined opponent dedicated to defeating it. We must be
able to have high confidence in it, although it can never be tested
under realistic conditions, such as in an environment disturbed by
nuclear explosions.
One cannot compare these awesome requirements with those faced by
the Apollo program to put a man on the moon - an analogy often made to
illustrate great challenges met by science and technology. Putting a
man on the moon was solely a technical challenge - the moon couldn't
shoot back, or run away, or dispense moon decoys, or turn off its
lights.
In view of such severe difficulties, I see no prospect of building an
effective nationwide defense now or in the foreseeable future, unless
the offensive threat is first tightly constrained technically and
greatly reduced numerically as a result of progress in arms control.
I agree with Dr. Richard DeLauer, undersecretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering during the first Reagan Administration, who
said: 'With unconstrained proliferation, no defensive system will
work.'
It follows that we MUST achieve some success in arms control negotiations
before any defensive system can become workable.
Given the current state of US-Soviet competition and nuclear arsenals, and
their likely trends, I recommend six actions that would meet our national
security needs without danaging our prospects for success in arms
negotiations.
1. Reaffirm our commitment to the ABM treaty of 1972 and agree to join
with the Soviet Union in not undercutting existing treaty commitments,
including SALT II. Meanwhile, work jointly with the Soviets through
the Standing Consultative Commission to resolve compliance disputes
that have arisen with regard to both agreements.
2. Organize and support a prudent, deliberate, and high-quality
research program on defensive technology, within ABM treaty limits.
The availability of such technology, together with the real
possibility of American countermeasures, can contribute to
discouraging the Soviets from deploying defensive systems in violation
of the treaty, minimizing the adverse effects of such a potential
Soviet 'breakout', if it should occur, and protecting us from
technological surprises.
3. Avoid large-scale technology demonstrations. A wide range of
technologies should be examined, but it is now far too early in the
research program on strategic defense to consider technology
demonstrations of types that could raise serious issues of compliance
with the ABM treaty. This was the explicit conclusion of a recent
workshop at the Stanford Center for International Security and Arms
Control, as indorsed by signatories that include supporters, as well
as opponents, of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
4. Form a strong 'red team' - that is, a team of devil's advocates -
to challenge the defense program concepts against potential Soviet
countermeasures. Any deployed defensive system will have to be
effective against a determined opponent who can resort to a wide
variety of countermeasures in order to defeat, deny, evade, destroy or
otherwise overpower the system.
5. Enact legislation in Congress with the explicit provision that the
research and technology program must proceed by means that are fully
consistent with the ABM Treaty. An appropriation of roughly $2
billion per year is fully adequate for a strong research program that
makes appropriate priority choices in developing new technologies.
6. Form an independent oversight panel of experts, appointed by and
responsible to Congress, to monitor the technical progress of the
research. This panel should ensure that the work remains in close
harmony with our overall military, security and arms control goals,
and strategic policy.
Finally, it is important to recognize that the path to a safer world
cannot be paved by technology alone. Our challenge is not to make a
better laser beam or computer, but to make progress in diplomacy and
arms control."
-------
------------------------------
Received: from RUTGERS.ARPA by MIT-MC.ARPA 26 Jul 85 17:48:35 EDT
Date: 26 Jul 85 17:47:15 EDT
From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Nuclear Terrorism
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Another thought on nuclear terrorism: it has been assumed that a
terrorist group would use stolen fissile material to build a nuclear
explosive. These devices use fast fission, and require on the order
of kilograms of fissile material.
There is another way to get a chain reaction, though, and that is to
use thermal neutrons. A terrorist group could dissolve on the order of
hundreds of grams of uranium or plutonium salts in water and surround
the assembly with a neutron reflector (more water, say, or plastic).
Rapidly brought to a supercritical state such an assembly could
vaporize the water, releasing perhaps 1 ton TNT in energy. This is
grossly inefficient, but will cause a pretty massive gamma ray and neutron
pulse and spread lots of radionuclides around.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
*****************************