ARMS-D-Request%MIT-MC.ARPA@MIT-XX.ARPA (Moderator) (10/20/85)
Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, October 19, 1985 11:53PM
Volume 1, Issue 1
Administrivia: Arms-D returns
SDI: Theory and Practice
Do-it-Yourself Fission Bomb
Questioning the need for SDI
Scenario for WW III
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From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: the Return of Arms-D
After a long absence, Arms-D returns. I have agreed to moderate the
list for a while, but I don't want the honors for very long. So, here
is the first call for volunteers -- WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE OVER THE
MODERATION OF THE ARMS-D LIST??
In the meantime, this digest will be put out on a GIGO basis, within
limits. However, please try to keep the personal attacks on
individuals to a minimum. I realize this is difficult to do, so I
will not suppress them entirely, but I do reserve the right to kill
personal attacks when they appear excessive in number.
The collected messages from ARMS-D accumulated over the summer will
follow in several subsequent editions. New contributions are invited.
Since I have forgotten which volume is the current one, I have
arbitrarily called the current one Volume 5.
Complaints to me (LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA), submissions to ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA.
It is likely that the digest will soon move to MIT-XX, and so
ARMS-D@MIT-XX will work too.
Herb Lin
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Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 10:28 EDT
From: Jong@HIS-BILLERICA-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: SDI: Theory and Practice
"Ah, Ivan, one can never wager against a resourceful American
fueled by capitalistic blood money! Did you see this report?
They have tracked their Space Shuttle with a laser beam. Recall
too that they succeeded in hitting a rocket warhead with a rocket
interceptor a few months ago. That sabre-rattling Reagan has all
the toys he needs to build his Star Wars system. We must build
more rockets..."
"Not so fast, Gregor! There is much ground to travel between
theory and practice. Recall our valiant biologists, who have
labored for years to disprove the evil theories of Darwin,
without success. And our program to land a Soviet citizen on the
moon never reached fruition. Even the Americans never built that
nuclear-powered aircraft they once boasted of. Sometimes things
simply are too hard."
"But we know from our own weapons research of X-ray lasers what
can be done along the lines of rocket defense. I tell you, we
must match the American effort weapon for weapon."
"I am not convinced our scientists have demonstrated a workable
defense. Setting off nuclear bombs to destroy other nuclear
bombs is a scant improvement. Is Reagan's 'Star Wars' really
practical? Look at this article our abstracting service in New
York culled. From the Boston Globe, a U.S. Defense Department
official says, 'the work we've done so far is like proving you
can disable a tank with a hacksaw. The problem is getting close
enough to do it.' The Americans are bluffing. Why did they
bargain away their last anti-missile missile system? To further
peace? No, because it would not work. Our multiple-warhead
rockets posed too formidible a challenge. They simply wish to
improve their position at Geneva, trick us into yielding our
strengths in return for their orbital chimera."
"I cannot agree, Comrade. Why would they spend so much money
on something that doesn't work? We cannot trust them."
"No, not for a moment. But we can overwhelm them. Let them
build their impenetrable shield in space. What can it do against
submarine rockets launched close to their shores? Against cruise
missiles? Against the heroic pilots of our bomber forces?"
"Despite your arguments, Ivan, I cannot feel secure. We must
press forward with our research. We must not let the Americans
have an advantage, or even think they have one. What if they
build their system, delude themselves into a feeling of
invulnerability, and decide to attack? They will see their error
when our rockets destroy their country, but we will already be
dead! What purpose does that serve?"
"Gregor, what purpose does it serve to copy something that does
not work? Our Su-24 fighter is a close copy of the American
F-111, which was worthless. Aeroflot cannot profit from its copy
of the Concorde any more than the British and French can. Even
my wife complains she cannot bend over in her blue jeans."
"Mother Russia is best defended through strength, Ivan. You
are too fond of gambling. We cannot entrust the security of our
country to such speculation. I say, build our own shield in
space, and build more rockets, too. If the system works, then we
shall possess it. If not, we will still have the upper hand."
"Perhaps you are right, Gregor. I cannot see where we will
find the money, but we must resist imperialist aggression.
Perhaps tonight we could stand in the shoe line and see if
something turns up in our size?"
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Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 08:00:55 PDT
From: Charlie Crummer <crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: Do-it-Yourself Fission Bomb
> Date: Wed 3 Jul 85 14:51:58-EDT
> From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA>
> Well, even an executive of marginal skill can make a go-cart that will
> probably go down hill once. Similarly, a suitable berserk terrorist
> could make a nuclear bomb, by making small sheets of [stolen]
> fissionables and piling them on top of each other *by hand* until they
> blew up. (n piles of 1 sheet ==> n/2 of 2 sheets ==> ... for larger
> blast, I guess.) This might discomfort the terrorist slightly; but
> that won't discourage everyone.
It is not nearly that easy to make a fission bomb and it has nothing to
do with whether or not one needs one or many. A critical stack of sheets of
fissionables would just get hot and at worst melt a little until the critical
mass was dissipated by the molten material dispersing. If the Looney Tune
had a zirconium bowl to catch the melt, it might get hotter before it
melted through and dissipated. A fission explosion requires that the
material be compressed to a very high density, hence the TNT implosion
trigger. It is the construction and precise detonation of this device
that is tricky. This is why the krytron high-speed switches are so
important.
> This is not an option for more professional bomb designers, or for
> people who want to survive the blast. Note that the terrorist will be
> dead several times: making the fissionable glip into sheets by hand
> with minimal protection.
Shade-tree mechanics may build super hotrods but there is no chance
that someone will build a fission bomb in their garage. The degree of
fanaticism has no bearing on the subject.
--Charlie
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Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 12:48:17 PDT
From: Chris Warack <warack@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: Questioning the need for SDI
I just recently started reading this so tell me if I missed something.
After reading the message below, I was somewhat confused:
Date: 1985 June 30 20:10:19 PST (=GMT-8hr)
>From: Robert Elton Maas <REM@IMSSS.SU.EDU>
Subject:non-zero-sum forgotten again, Will Martin guilty this time
...
(1) Nuclear warfare is *NOT* a zero-sum game!!!!! There are some
things that are bad for both the USA and the USSR, ...
I had nothing wrong with that -- nuclear war is not desirable
(2) Strategic Defense Initiative (space-based partial defense against
ICBMs) would cause such a massive nuclear exchange.
This is where the trouble begins:
Why? Because of
massivenumbers of accurate multiple-warhead missiles. In the past MAD
kept either side from starting the exchange. But with SDI in
operation one side could launch an all-out pre-emptive attack,
knocking out most of the other side's retaliatory missiles. SDI
couldn't stop any significant fraction of the pre-emptive missiles,
but might adequate defend against a retaliatory strike using the few
missiles that didn't get knocked out by the pre-emptive strike.
Over 50% of the US missiles are SLBM's and are not vulnerable to a pre-emptive
strike by the USSR even accounting for the ones caught in port. This seems
to be a common misconception -- that the USA is vulnerable to such an attack.
The policy of deterrence centers around surviving such an attack and being
able to retaliate. For this reason, we have concentrated our forces in
SLBM's. In fact, a number of opponents to ICBM's (and the MX in particular)
feel our ICBM force should be deactivated anyways, since SLBM's carry more
warheads with sufficient accuracy to be adequate for deterrence. In
this light the Soviets are no better off than they are now.
Thus multiple-warhead missiles together with partial SDI
would create an ability for either side that has such SDI to
strike first and win without suffering much damage in return.
During the time SDI by one side is being built, the other
side may be forced to start a nuclear exchange just to have a
both-dead-draw instead of waiting and being decisively
defeated. On the other hand, if both sides build SDI, we have
a long-term unstable situation where at the slightest sign of
upcmoing war whoever shoots first wins so there's a high
incentive to start a war rather than sit back and hope it
doesn't happen.
President Reagan insinuated at one time that their was a good possibility
that the launching of any type of SDI system would be coordinated with
the 'other super-power'. This certainly would be wise, but with the
fickleness of politics, it surely is not certain. The fear of the kind
of pre-emptive attack that might come from one side achieving SDI first is
not unfounded, but neither is it likely. As I mentioned earlier, there is
no more incentive to start a nuclear war after SDI as before. (The Soviets
do concentrate more on ICBM's than we do, but even their SLBM force is
sufficient.)
(4) So get it out of your head that every time the USSR complains
about something they don't like it must be something good for us.
Think for yourself, is it good for us and bad for them, or is it bad
for both us and them?
So in direct answer to your question, USSR doesn't like SDI because it
will put them in a position of having only two choices:
(a) Getting destroyed and not being able to shoot back, the end of
the Marxist doctrine, everything they worked for destroyed;
(b) Starting WW3 themselves, contrary to human decency and their
operating principles for decades.
If they can get us to hold back on SDI, they will have a third option:
(c) Avoiding WW3 for long enough to negotiate some kind of arms
reduction that eventualy yields true peace.
I happen to think (c) is better than (a) or (b) for the USA too, thus
we should go along with USSR's desire to halt SDI development.
A final point, the author of this article seems to think that the USSR is
gasping about in panic because we are into SDI and they are decades behind.
That is also false. The Soviets have been heavily engaged in high energy
research for years. Many experts even believe that they are ahead of us in
some fields (e.g. particle beams). The USA, though, has shown in the past
(WWII and Apollo 11 come to mind) that when it marshalls its techno-industrial
base, things happen. Of course, this would worry the Soviets and of course,
they would have nothing to lose by getting the US to stall. Their own
research, naturally is not the issue.
Keep thinking for yourselves -- but there are a lot of things out there you
might not know about.
Chris Warack
warack@aerospace
If SDI actually can replace deterrence in insuring national security, then
what excuse is there not to disarm (nuclear)?
[Note from the Moderator: The Soviet's goal of world domination, perhaps?]
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Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 15:26:05 pdt
From: Doug Iles/guest <hplabs!iles@Berkeley>
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To: mdc.wayne%mit-oz@mit-mc
Subject: Your scenario for WW III
Cc: arms-d@Berkeley
Right. You have Iran and Iraq joined. Remember that the Ayatollah has
vowed not to cease fighting until the the President of Iraq steps down.
You have Syria and Saudi Arabia joined. The Saudis hate (read: fear) the
Shi'ite fundamentalists greatly.
You have Egypt joined with Syria. These alliances are not possible by
1990. In your words, "...may sound somewhat far fetched, but not to
anyone who has studied...and knows to what extreme...religious obbsessions are
able to drive groups and nations." Absolutely correct. Your mistake
is that most of these religious obsessions are opposed, not joined, in the
battle of the mid-east. There is no allied Arab front. There
never has been and never will be.
Your note shows a rather American-Media-Shaped view of events. I have
lived in Israel, and I have been in Lebanon, and I think that if one
seriously examines recent mid-east history, you will see that neither
the U.S. nor the Soviet Union want a serious destabalization of the
region (please review the 1956 and 1973 wars, when the USSR and US,
respectively, stepped in to avoid a major change in mid-east power
balances).
Far more likely is a WW III scenario based in Western Europe. The
U.S. and Soviet Union have both shown a willingness to do battle there
which they have not shown in the middle east.
Daniel Lieman
hplabs!iles or iles%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa or hplabs!iles@berkeley
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