arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (07/09/85)
From: The Arms-D Moderator (Harold Ancell) <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA> Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 3 : Issue 57 Today's Topics: Use of so-so BMD Krytrons One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Jul 85 21:52:58 pdt From: rimey%ucbdali@Berkeley (Ken Rimey) Subject: Use of so-so BMD Will Martin asks, concisely, --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | If the SDI is hugely expensive and yet ineffectual and worthless, why | | are the Soviets against our attempting to create and deploy it? | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's say that Reagan's statements to the public were white lies, and we build a system that can stop only some fraction of an attack. (Note: NOT a point-defense system) The world will be impressed nevertheless. The Soviet Union will look inferior. For some reason, the USSR feels it needs as many ICBMs as it has. If we can shoot down some fraction, they will build more missiles so that in the worst case as many get through as before. This will be expensive for them. Also, it will prompt us to build more missiles ourselves; the usual pressures to maintain parity in missile numbers, throw weight, and warheads will not disappear with strategic defense. These missile buildups will not be restricted by present treaties. The ceilings in the SALT treaties were negotiated in the context of the ABM treaty, and the ABM treaty will go long before actual deployment of a BMD system begins. The USSR presumably does not want to see these treaties abandoned. Our war-fighting policy emphasizes reply in kind, rather than massive retaliation. On the other hand, there is indication that in the USSR less emphasis is placed on tit-for-tat in strategic nuclear exchanges. But are they willing to lose the option? With a so-so BMD system in place, a threat by us to lob a couple of warheads at military targets in the USSR would leave them with a difficult choice: Strike massively or swallow it. Reply in kind would be made impossible. A moderately effective BMD system could allow military domination of low orbit. I challenge readers to refute the following claims: 1. Any BMD system capable of shooting down half of a missile attack could clear low orbit of all present Soviet satellites within a few minutes. 2. Any such BMD system could render an opponent's BMD system inoperative within a few minutes since any BMD system will have critical components in low orbit. [Note from the Moderator: not if they are protected by a meter or more of moon rock.] If we have such a system deployed, the deployment of a similar system by the USSR would be a threat because it would render our system (totally) useless for BMD. They could simply shoot it down while simultaneously launching their missiles. Consequently, we might feel the need to prevent the deployment of their system. Though it sounds like science fiction, this might be accomplished by a blockade of the planet. We simply shoot down (or threaten to shoot down) all ascending enemy rockets (short of a large-scale missile attack). If the USSR believes any of the above, they might view this seizure of the high ground as a very serious defeat. They could of course announce right now that they will shoot down space weapons that we deploy. SDI is being sold to a portion of the public as the road away from WWIII. Many Americans would be shocked and confused by such an announcement by the Soviets. SDI might die a political death. If the USSR allowed us to deploy our system, and it developed into more than they bargained for, there would be pressure for them to attack it with antisatellite weapons. This would be an act of war. Ken Rimey rimey@ucbvax ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Jul 85 9:07:23 CDT From: William Martin <control@ALMSA-1> Subject: [rimey%ucbdali: Re: krytrons] Forwarding as requested: ----- Forwarded message # 1: Date: Mon, 1 Jul 85 15:00:17 pdt From: rimey%ucbdali@Berkeley (Ken Rimey) Subject: Re: krytrons Re krytron's radioactivity -- I thought I had read one description of them that said they were tube-type switches filled with some mildly radioactive gas to encourage rapid ionization when they are triggered... Will This does indeed sound plausible. I stand corrected. Ken p.s. You might forward this to arms-d if your note wasn't sent there. ----- End of forwarded messages ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 1985 04:49 EDT (Wed) From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA> Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah Date: Tuesday, 25 June 1985 09:43-EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN at MIT-MC.ARPA> Even a "small" attack--with just a handful of devices, and perhaps against a small neighbor--could set in motion a larger conflagration. I have asked proliferation experts about this question myself, and I have never received a satisfactory answer. Just how could this scenario unfold? How about this six-stage scenario: It is 1990. The forces of aggressive religious fundamentalism which dominated Israel under Begin and Sharon have again thoroughly taken command of the Israeli government, and are even more fanatical than before. The Labor Party and other forces of moderation are essentially powerless on the Israeli political scene. Due to increasing criticism from nations all around the world, especially from its old friend the United States, Israel is feeling extremely paranoid and defiant, and is convinced it is trapped in a last-ditch battle for its survival against the entire world. (Sounds vaguely like the Old Testament Armageddon, eh? Nothing miraculous or prophetic in that: religious mythologies have a natural tendency to fulfill themselves in gullible societies.) In this volatile situation a Jewish terrorist group (very much like ones that are already emerging on the Israeli scene) manages to blow up the Dome of the Rock (stage 1). The Israeli government is not entirely displeased, since the Jewish fundamentalists in charge of the nation can now proceed with their longstanding plans to consolidate control over Jerusalem, and to rebuild the Biblical Jewish Temple on the conveniently cleared sacred site. The Islamic nations are enraged. Iraq and Iran have settled their past disputes, and are, with Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other nations in the region, now joined in an intimate and mighty military alliance governed by Islamic fundamentalism. The Islamic forces attack Israel in retaliation for the injustice which has occurred in the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, and to restore Jerusalem to the control of Allah (stage 2). Yahweh and Allah are now locked in a vicious Holy War, and one could not find on the earth more fierce and fanatical combatants. The gods of capitalism and Marxism-Leninism are mild-mannered accountants by comparison. Let's say the legions of Allah begin to triumph with conventional weaponry over the forces of Yahweh. Israel, in desperation and panic, drops one or two "warning" nukes on Islamic capitals (stage 3). Let us also assume that some of the members of the prominent network of national security intellectuals whose personalities, worldviews, and recommendations are strongly conditioned by an emotional identification with militant Israeli nationalism (Edward Luttwak and Richard Pipes come to mind), and who are agitating for the U.S to adopt policies which would severely alienate the Islamic world, have eventually gotten their way sometime in the late eighties. States like Iran are now clients of the Soviet Union, not out of love or ideological sympathy (Moslems are violently anti-Marxist), but from a profound (and perhaps well-justified) hatred of the U.S. In retaliation for Israel's nuclear attack on its clients, the Soviet Union vows to bring Israel to its knees and remove its claws, and launches a massive conventional attack on the Jewish state (stage 4). It seems, however, that Israel has managed to place thirty or forty briefcase bombs at strategic locations in the Soviet Union during the preceding decade, and decides that now, as it faces certain defeat and dismantlement by the Moslems and Soviets (and even possible extermination), is the appropriate time to detonate them, in a final act of defiance and revenge (stage 5). A large part of the Soviet Union now lies in ruins. The surviving Soviet leaders, understandably in a state of advanced rage and irrationality, blame the United States for Israel's action (we are, after all, her patron), and instantly respond with a nuclear strike against Israel and major American cities and other strategic targets (stage 6). Notice that in this scheme, both the U.S. and USSR are annihilated without the U.S. firing a single shot. Keep in mind, too, that the six stages of this story could fully unfold in a few days, before anyone could exchange calm diplomatic communications or apply rational restraints. One can easily think of dozens of variations on this theme, all of which would climax in a global nuclear holocaust. Also, the possibility cannot be discounted that at some point in the future the national interests of the U.S. and Israel might begin to diverge so drastically that America could find itself the direct target of Israeli hostility. (A close reading of the Israeli press will turn up ample signs of that hostility even today.) I've seen speculation that Israel might be strongly motivated to take out an "insurance policy," to set in place now the apparatus with which to persuade (coerce) American policy makers of the wisdom of certain actions in a future situation where U.S.-Israeli relations might have significantly deteriorated. I can't think of any scripts for the triggering of WWIII with a setting in Europe, Asia, or Latin America that are nearly as convincing as the above sequence of events. In the Mideast we find the appropriate mixture of superpower entanglements, rich strategic prizes, raging hatreds, and limitless self-righteousness on the part of all parties. The above scenario may sound somewhat far-fetched to some people, but not to anyone who has studied history and knows to what extreme and even suicidal lengths religious obsessions are able to drive groups and nations. Rationality in civilization is an exceedingly thin veneer, one that at the moment is being deliberately and systematically ripped apart by a number of governments and movements in and around the Holy Land. Wayne McGuire <mdc.wayne%mit-oz@mit-mc> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jul 85 17:41:24 EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA> Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah To: MDC.WAYNE@MIT-OZ Date: Tuesday, 25 June 1985 09:43-EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN at MIT-MC.ARPA> Even a "small" attack--with just a handful of devices, and perhaps against a small neighbor--could set in motion a larger conflagration. I have asked proliferation experts about this question myself, and I have never received a satisfactory answer. Just how could this scenario unfold? How about this six-stage scenario: It is 1990. The forces of aggressive religious fundamentalism which dominated Israel under Begin and Sharon have again thoroughly taken command of the Israeli government.. Let's say the legions of Allah begin to triumph with conventional weaponry over the forces of Yahweh. Israel, in desperation and panic, drops one or two "warning" nukes on Islamic capitals (stage 3). I can believe the scenario up to this point. After this point, it gets murkier. In retaliation for Israel's nuclear attack on its clients, the Soviet Union vows to bring Israel to its knees and remove its claws, and launches a massive conventional attack on the Jewish state (stage 4). Why would it do such a thing? Why is it in Soviet interests to intervene directly? It seems, however, that Israel has managed to place thirty or forty briefcase bombs at strategic locations in the Soviet Union during the preceding decade, and decides that now, as it faces certain defeat and dismantlement by the Moslems and Soviets (and even possible extermination), is the appropriate time to detonate them, in a final act of defiance and revenge (stage 5). Suitcase bombs are low yield, and will be surface burst. Therefore, 40 bombs, while awful, will NOT cause "A large part of the Soviet Union [to lie] in ruins". Moreover, you assume that 40 bombs have been inserted into the SU; that's a big part of the problem to assume away. Given the right assumptions, I can make nearly anything happen. The surviving Soviet leaders, understandably in a state of advanced rage and irrationality, blame the United States for Israel's action (we are, after all, her patron), and instantly respond with a nuclear strike against Israel and major American cities and other strategic targets (stage 6). Notice that in this scheme, both the U.S. and USSR are annihilated without the U.S. firing a single shot. If you believe that 40 suitcase bombs exploding in Soviet cities is enough to prompt them to use their all-out deterrent forces, then I guess I have to say I don't. If that were, why do we need so many nuclear weapons NOW?? Also, the possibility cannot be discounted that at some point in the future the national interests of the U.S. and Israel might begin to diverge so drastically that America could find itself the direct target of Israeli hostility. Agreed. I've seen speculation that Israel might be strongly motivated to take out an "insurance policy," to set in place now the apparatus with which to persuade (coerce) American policy makers of the wisdom of certain actions in a future situation where U.S.-Israeli relations might have significantly deteriorated. How? By threatening the US? I don't think that's what you mean. By threatening to use them againt the Soviets so that the US will be drawn in? That I believe. But then the US WILL be drawn in, and the Israelis won't use their bomb against the SU. The above scenario may sound somewhat far-fetched to some people, but not to anyone who has studied history and knows to what extreme and even suicidal lengths religious obsessions are able to drive groups and nations. True. But the Soviet Uniion is not governed by martyrdom-seeking fanatics. If it is, we are in BIG trouble. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 1985 19:16 EDT (Wed) From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA> Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah Date: Wednesday, 3 July 1985 17:41-EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN at MIT-MC.ARPA> If you believe that 40 suitcase bombs exploding in Soviet cities is enough to prompt them to use their all-out deterrent forces, then I guess I have to say I don't. If that were, why do we need so many nuclear weapons NOW?? Perhaps you have the hard numbers on this, and could put this part of the scenario into proper perspective: just what is the maximum nuclear megatonnage that could currently be packed into, say, a Dodge minivan, and how much damage would one or two of these packages produce if detonated in the center of Moscow or Manhattan? How would one or two of these blasts compare in destructive power with the devices we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Also, the SU might well not use their all-out deterrent force, but "only" take an eye for an eye. As to why we need so many nuclear weapons now: good question. Don't the U.S. and USSR already possess more than enough nuclear devices to vaporize each other many times over? But the Soviet Uniion is not governed by martyrdom-seeking fanatics. If it is, we are in BIG trouble. This issue came up once before here. Are there any circumstances in which the Soviet Union could be pushed by events to intervene militarily in the Middle East? In recent years the Soviet Union has been extremely cautious about being drawn into conflict situations which could escalate into a superpower confrontation. If the much more hardline faction in the Soviet power elite, which has been restrained by the relatively moderate present leadership, came to dominate the government, and if a situation arose in which one or more key Soviet client states in the Middle East came under Israeli attack, then I think anything could happen. There is a limit to how much face the Soviet Union can afford to lose in protecting its clients and interests around the world. Under severe stress the Soviets might take risks and make miscalculations that could contribute to the triggering of a global holocaust. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jul 85 01:52:57 EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA> Subject: One Apocalyptic Scenario: Yahweh vs. Allah To: MDC.WAYNE@MIT-OZ Perhaps you have the hard numbers on this, and could put this part of the scenario into proper perspective: just what is the maximum nuclear megatonnage that could currently be packed into, say, a Dodge minivan, and how much damage would one or two of these packages produce if detonated in the center of Moscow or Manhattan? How would one or two of these blasts compare in destructive power with the devices we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Remember that you are talking about fission, not fusion, bombs. Thus, the largest plausible is probably several tens of KT. Hiroshima = 20KT. Hard to get more than one bomb to explode at the same time, so packing more than one bomb into a minivan isn't easy. How will Israel get bombs into the SU now? Also, the SU might well not use their all-out deterrent force, but "only" take an eye for an eye. But this assumes rationality again. You can't play the game both ways. They can't be so irrational that they invade Israel, and yet so rational that they go tit-for-tat. If the much more hardline faction in the Soviet power elite, which has been restrained by the relatively moderate present leadership, came to dominate the government, and if a situation arose in which one or more key Soviet client states in the Middle East came under Israeli attack, then I think anything could happen. If Teddy Roosevelt became President today, he would make Reagan look like a peacenik. Therefore, under those circumstances, anything could happen. No law of physics prevents what you describe from happening; true enough. But I find it highly implausible. There is a limit to how much face the Soviet Union can afford to lose in protecting its clients and interests around the world. Under severe stress the Soviets might take risks and make miscalculations that could contribute to the triggering of a global holocaust. Ultimately, the question to be asked is how the Soviets will respond to any situation. Answer: in their own interests. Thus, the burden is on you to demonstrate how a Soviet intervention in the M.E. against Israel is in Soviet interests. Moreover, you have to demonstrate why Israel would not *threaten* the SU with these hidden bombs (rather than use them) *before* anything happened militarily. ------------------------------ [End of ARMS-D Digest]