arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (07/10/85)
From: The Arms-D Moderator (Harold Ancell) <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 3 : Issue 58
Today's Topics:
ABM Treaty Question
SDI and Build-Down
NYT review of Jastrow book
Soviet Attitudes Towards SDI
Comment On Sdi Instability
Space Development Initiative
100th Monkey
Israeli Action Illegal?
Purpose of SDI?
Nuclear Terrorism
Militarization of Space
Maximum Size of Fission Bombs...
Magnetically Levitated Kinetic Energy Store
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Date: Thu, 4 Jul 85 02:05:50 PDT
From: rimey%ucbmiro@Berkeley (Ken Rimey)
Subject: ABM treaty question
I want to pose a question concerning the interpretation of the 1972
ABM Treaty. It was obviously written without directed energy weapons
in mind. Article II, reproduced below, defines the term "ABM system".
Are directed energy weapons covered by the treaty or not? I have read
contradictory things.
More precisely, what are the official interpretations of the US and
USSR, and what were they when the treaty was signed? I have also
included Article V below because it suggests that beam weapons are
in spirit banned by the treaty.
Incidentally, the treaty is highly recommended reading. It, together
with the 1974 "Protocol", is only a few thousand words, and, as you
can see, it is in plain english. My copy is in the back of the Union
of Concerned Scientists book "The Fallacy of Star Wars".
Ken Rimey
Article II
1. For the purpose of this Treaty an ABM system is a system to counter
strategic ballistic missiles or their elements in flight trajectory,
CURRENTLY [emphasis mine] consisting of:
(a) ABM interceptor missiles, which are interceptor missiles
constructed and deployed for an ABM role, or of a type tested
in an ABM mode;
(b) ABM launchers, which are launchers constructed and deployed
for launching ABM interceptor missiles; and
(c) ABM radars, which are radars constructed and deployed for an
ABM role, or of a type tested in an ABM mode.
2. The ABM system components listed in paragraph 1 of this Article
include those which are:
(a) operational;
(b) under construction;
(c) undergoing testing;
(d) undergoing overhaul, repair or conversion; or
(e) mothballed.
Article V
1. Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems
or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile
land-based.
2. Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM launchers
for launching more than one ABM interceptor missile at a time from each
launcher, nor to modify deployed launchers to provide them with such a
capability, nor to develop, test, or deploy automatic or semi-automatic
or similar systems for rapid reload of ABM launchers.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Jul 85 00:43:52 CDT (Fri)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Subject: SDI and build-down
Many people (including, to a considerable extent, me) think that it would
be a good idea if SDI deployment were linked to a major reduction in
offensive strategic weapons. A notion along these lines occurred to me
the other day. If one assumes that the coast-phase interception system
within SDI is ground-launched rather than satellite-based, one interesting
way of going about it would be to use existing Minuteman silos as launch
points for the interception system. In this way, deploying the defense
system automatically reduces the number of offensive missiles.
The one disadvantage -- grave, possibly prohibitive -- of this scheme is
that a mass interceptor launch looks very much like a retaliatory attack,
from a distance. Any thoughts?
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jul 1985 2120-PDT
From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA
Subject: NYT review of Jastrow book
A review of the book "How To Make Nuclear Weapons Obsolete" by Robert
Jastrow; review by William Broad, science reporter for the NYT. The
review appeared in the 7 July NYT Book Review section.
"'Star Wars' will work, claims Robert Jastrow, a leading proponent of
the Reagan Adminstration's five-year, $26 billion Strategic Defense
Initiative, its quest for a space-based defense against enemy
missiles. What apparently makes Mr. Jastrow so confident of success
is that the system will do so little.
Despite his book's title, "How To Make Nuclear Weapons Obsolete", no
technical defense is envisioned that would do so. No shield is
proposed that would protect American cities and people from missile
attacks and banish the threat of nuclear war - the hope expressed by
President Reagan in his 'Star Wars' speech of March 1983. Rather, Mr.
Jastrow points out that any shield would be leaky and that as little
as 60% effectiveness would still be a worthy goal, sine it would help
insure the retaliatory capability of the American nuclear arsenal.
This argument is anything but new. In speeches and interviews,
Administration officials have pushed a similar line, one that critics
have dismissed as fatally flawed. What is surprising is that Mr.
Jastrow, a professor of earth sciences at Dartmouth College and
founder of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, fails to make
the scaled-down goal any more appealing. Instead, he skips the
standard challenges to it and glosses over the inconsistencies of his
position. For example, after bemoaning the 'cruel policy' of mutual
assured destruction, Mr. Jastrow goes on to outline his
high-technology alternative and to say 'With such a defense in place
... we will be able to strike back with our nuclear weapons and reduce
all major Soviet cities to rubble in thirty minutes.'
In breathless detail, he argues that the American nuclear arsenal -
bombers, submarines, and most especially land-based missiles - is
vulnerable to a pre-emptive Soviet strike that would wipe out the
American means of retaliation. But while struggling to reopen this
so-called window of vulnerability, Mr. Jastrow does not mention that
in 1983 a Presidential blue-ribbon panel formed to evaluate the state
of America's strategic nuclear capability, the Scowcroft Commission,
slammed it shut. So great was the faith of the Commission in the
invulnerability of American basing modes that it said the land-based,
intercontinental MX missile should be placed in Minuteman silos,
supposedly the most vulnerable element of the strategic triad.
With similar nonchalance, Mr. Jastrow, while painitng a menacing
portrait of 'monster' Soviet SS-18 missiles, ignores one reason for
their size - antiquated technology. American missiles are smaller
because they have miniaturized guidance systems, more efficient rocket
engines, thinner but more effective heat shields and more compact,
efficient hydrogen bombs.
At the end of the book, the author dismisses in a paragraph the most
serious complaint of all - that a shield might enhance the risk of
nuclear war, since it could be used offensively against a feeble
retaliation after a first strike. This objection, he says, is fatuous
since both sides would be protected by shields. But Mr. Jastrow fails
to mention, first, his own admission that shields would be quite leaky
and, second, that the Pentagon, loath to take any chances, is rapidly
expanding its research on how to penetrate shields. Its most exotic
weapon, the X-ray laser powered by a nuclear bomb, is viewed by
military officials as ideal for destroying enemy battle stations in
space.
Everyone wants the threat of nuclear annihilation to go away. But if
Mr. Jastrow's book is the best argument on behalf of 'Star Wars', the
only thing it will render obsolete is the hope for a technical
solution to the arms race."
------------------------------
Date: Mon 8 Jul 85 03:13:41-EDT
From: Wayne McGuire <mdc.wayne%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Soviet Attitudes Towards SDI
There is an excellent analysis of Soviet attitudes towards SDI in the
Summer 1985 issue (Number 59) of _Foreign Policy_ by David B. Rivkin,
Jr. Many people would argue that _Foreign Policy_ is the best general
interest journal on strategic affairs in the world (_Foreign Affairs_
is a close competitor). Rivkin bases his analysis not on wild
speculation, but on "[t]he best available evidence--Soviet strategic
writings and official policy statements crosschecked with actual
Soviet military decisions." He explores the complex strategic
implications of trade-offs between defense- and offense-based systems
that presently preoccupy the Soviet leadership and condition its
attitude towards SDI. Worth reading. (Too bad Rivkin isn't on the
Arpanet.)
-------
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 1985 09:13-EDT
From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-UNH.ARPA
Subject: Re: comment on SDI instability
The comment assumes that an SDI system would not meet Paul Nitze's
criteria of being survivable and cheaper at the margin. People like
Jerry Pournelle talk about slapping thick layers of moon rock on the
satellites to protect them from everything besides nearby nuclear
attacks.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 85 09:21:56 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-UNH
Subject: Space Development Initiative
Several recent posts claimed that all sort of good space development
byproducts would come from SDI. These included solar power satellites,
space manufacturing, living and working in space, space infrastructure, etc.
An SDI system using pop-up, nuclear-powered, X-ray lasers would provide none
of these. Even for non-nuclear systems, the only thing that seems sure to
be developed is a heavy lifting vehicle and some in-orbit assembly
capability. I haven't seen solar power satellites mentioned in ANY SDI
papers.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 15:33:14 EDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: 100th Monkey and Soviet View of Star Wars
To: crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA
Whether or not the myth of the 100th monkey has basis in fact
is rather beside the point. It serves to produce the vision in
people's minds of an achievable goal. There are other better
documented examples of the effect, e.g. the ending of slavery
as an institution in the world and the landing of a man on the
moon. The fact that a "critical mass" of people became
convinced that these goals would be achieved may not have
"caused" the achievement but it certainly set the context
within which the causes arose.
False. What it took was leadership; in these cases, leadership shaped
public opinion through its credibility and access to the people. This
is consistent with your speaker who comment "the amazing power of a
presidential proclamation".
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 85 15:52:05 PDT
From: Charlie Crummer <crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
Subject: 100th Monkey
[Note from the Moderator: removed from here is an inclusion of the
above message.]
Leadership and public pursuasion are the same concept, I think. The leadership
may not be from a single person but from many people in positions of influence.
Example: Tobacco chewing is much less acceptable now than it was before the
turn of the century yet no one leader caused this to happen.
--Charlie
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 01:44:38 EDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: 100th Monkey
To: crummer@AEROSPACE.ARPA
> False. What it took was leadership; in these cases, leadership shaped
> public opinion through its credibility and access to the people. This
> is consistent with your speaker who comment "the amazing power of a
> presidential proclamation".
Leadership and public pursuasion are the same concept, I think.
The leadership
may not be from a single person but from many people in positions
of influence.
OK. But that is not the message of the 100th Monkey stuff, which
asserts individual consciousness translates into global consciousness
in a discontinuous manner.
Moreover, in the case of slavery, the leadership took very unpopular
steps, armed with a moral vision that was not shared. In the case of
the moon shot, most of the US people were already committed to doing
something to reassert technological superiority over the Soviets.
Example: Tobacco chewing is much less acceptable now than it was before the
turn of the century yet no one leader caused this to happen.
Tobacco chewing was not a great social issue; comparatively few oxes
were gored when people stopped.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 1985 10:34-PDT
From: king@Kestrel.ARPA
Subject: israeli action illegal?
_________________________________
>Date: Wed, 3 Jul 85 08:24:57 pdt
From: alice!wolit@Berkeley
Subject: "Terrorism"
The Geneva Conventions are explicit in stating that it is illegal
to transport civilians across national boundaries, as Israel did.
There is an exception to section 49 that states that if it comes to be
impractical to hold the prisonors of an occupation in their country
that they could be moved across the border for a time. This certainly
applies, as Israel withdrew past the prison camp they were using and it
would have hardly been practical to build one further in for a few
weeks' use!
Never forget that a state of war (NOT initially declared by Israel, by
the way) exists between the two powers involved.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 1985 1437-PDT
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: Purpose of SDI?
Jennings says the purpose of Strategic Defense Initiative isn't to
eliminate threat of nuclear weapons by making them impotent, but rather
to build an industrial base in space especially for strategic stuff,
so that in the event of a nuclear war the USA could reconstitute itself
quickly, thus the USSR would find no advantage in destroying us on the
ground. Perhaps somebody should inform Reagan of the true purpose of SDI.
I've never him mention anything remotely like this, so I assume he is
ignorant of the true purpose of SDI. If anyone ought to be enlightened,
I think Reagan should. Agree? Volunteer to enlighten him?
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 85 23:11:52 CDT (Mon)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Subject: Nuclear Terrorism
To: LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA
> What is hard for a terrorist group is probably not hard for people
> with the expertise that you find at a weapons lab.
The way around this is to bring in a knowledgeable outsider, and have
the weapons-lab people watch for safety problems but avoid giving hints.
I'd be willing to give it a try :-).
> If what you are saying is that we should safeguard bomb-grade
> fissionables better than we do now, I agree entirely.
That was part of my point, but I was also pointing out that availability
of bomb-grade fissionables doesn't enter into the question of whether a
terrorist group would find it technologically difficult to build bombs.
> ... the Manhattan project had $20B in resources behind it (today's
> dollars).
My point here was that the Manhattan project didn't always spend big
bucks on things; often they did things in a manner that could be
duplicated in a garage. Certainly glove boxes (the specific example)
are easy to build.
> ... the difficulty is not in any
> individual act, but in the hundreds and thousands of places that one
> can screw up with a limited supply of material with which to screw up.
This can be minimized by practicing in advance with ordinary uranium.
But I agree that it's a non-trivial issue.
> If you don't care about the occasional failure, then you could just
> send a design and a sample of fissionable material to the relevant
> authorities, and not build a bomb at all...
As you point out, people have done this (minus the fissionable sample).
My understanding is that it has, in fact, occurred a number of times,
but most of them have been kept quiet. If you are interested in extortion
or causing a panic, this is a simpler way to go, but if you really want
to blow things up (e.g. the fanatical-terrorist case), that's different.
You can still tolerate an occasional failure, for the sake of the times
when it does work.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: 8 Jul 85 23:17:27 CDT (Mon)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Subject: militarization of space
> True, as Carter argues, it is defensive -- but boy does it
> make a mess! We are talking about a period when man is just emerging
> from his god given cocoon to taste the heretofore restricted fruit of
> space manufactureing and space habitat. Space will no longer be 'up
> there' to everyone. It will be like the old west, but on a much more
> deadly scale. In short, my concern is the proper environmental impact
> statements are not being prepared nor considered.
Space is already in use as a transit path for ICBMs. Has anyone done
an environmental-impact statement for them? (Use, not deployment!)
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jul 85 07:41:45 EDT
From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Maximum size of fission bombs...
Actually, Ted Taylor designed some fission bombs of very large yield back in
the fifties. They were tested around the time H-bombs were being perfected.
The yields are classified; Taylor says they were in "the megaton range".
The reason H bombs are used now is their much lower cost (one uses fusion
neutrons to fission U-238 rather than having to use expensive fissile
material).
It may be that high yield fission bombs are as difficult to build as
thermonuclear weapons.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 85 10:03:43 EDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Maximum size of fission bombs...
Date: 9 Jul 85 07:41:45 EDT
From: DIETZ at RUTGERS.ARPA
[Note from the Moderator: Another long quote from above message removed.]
I know about Taylor's work -- the largest fission bomb on public
record is about 600KT. I did not mean to suggest that a fission bomb
was limited to several tens of KT, just that tens of KT was what you
could reasonably expect from a relatively primitive nuclear weapons
program.
It may be that high yield fission bombs are as difficult to build as
thermonuclear weapons.
Quite true, according to the designers I have spoken to.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jul 85 07:55:54 EDT
From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Magnetically Levitated Kinetic Energy Store
I got some details from Argonne on that megnetically levitated loop
kinetic energy storage system. The baseline system has a radius of
1 km, a velocity of 7 km/sec and a stored energy of 7000 megawatt hours
(about 5 kilotons). The system uses a leviated superconducting coil;
there are severe cooling constraints. An attractive maglev system using
radially stable vertically unstable attractive levitation is also mentioned.
It has a lower power density but seems more tractable, since the ring can
be at room temperature.
Aside from Lofstrom Loops, this technology seems directly applicable to
SDI. Depending on your power extraction/conditioning equipment, one could
extract energy from the ring very quickly. Dumping in 300 seconds gives
a power of some 80 gigawatts -- that will pump a BIG laser. It might also
be useful for laser powered surface-to-orbit rockets. The loop can also
containing ring segments, which can be accelerated like particles in
a synchrotron. Since the velocity would be added to these pieces gradually
high efficiencies (95%?) should be possible, making the system (or a variant
using repulsive maglev) a candidate for use as a mass driver.
------------------------------
[End of ARMS-D Digest]