arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (07/01/85)
From: The Arms-D Moderator (Harold Ancell) <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 3 : Issue 52
Today's Topics:
The Hundreth Monkey
Basic SDI / Star Wars Defense Question
Nuclear Terrorism etc.
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Date: Sat, 29 Jun 85 17:54:00 EDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: The Hundreth Monkey...
some time ago, someone reported to this digest a story about the
hundreth monkey phenomenon. It goes like this:
"In the autumn of that year, an unspecified number of monkeys living
on an island were washing potatoes in the sea. [Since some details
are not available], let us say that the number was 99, and that at 11
AM on Tuesday, one further monkey suddenly learned how to wash
potatoes. But the addition of the the 100th monkey apparently carried
the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through a kind of
critical mass, because by that evening, everyone was doing washing
potatoes. Not only that, but the habit seems to have jumped natural
barriers and to have appeared spontaneously, like glycerine crysttals
in sealed jars, in colonies on other lands and on the mainland."
The story above was then used to suggest how one individual could
have a profound effect on the arms race; if enough people wanted
nuclear disarmament, it would happen, and furthermore, maybe all it
would take is YOU.
This is the argument in the book The Hundreth Monkey, by Ken Keyes, a
Vision Book, and it was brought here to Arms-D by someone I have
forgotten.
For the amusement of others, there is now an article that explores the
100th Monkey phenomenon, in the summer 1985 issue of the Skeptical
Inquirer, that looks at the evidence for this phenomenon. Guess what?
Nothing of the sort ever happened. The article has the following
statement near the end.
"The message of the Keyes books is that you may be the Hundreth
Monkey, whose contribution to the collective consciousness turns the
world away from nuclear holocaust. It is hard to find fault with this
motive. For the very same reasons, one could not fault the motives of
a child who wrote to Santa Claus requesting world nuclear disarmament
as a Christmas present. We can only hope that Santa Claus and the
Hundreth Monkey are not our best chances to avoid nuclear war."
Comments welcomed!!
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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 85 15:32:39 CDT
From: William Martin <control@ALMSA-1>
Subject: Basic SDI / Star Wars Defense Question
This question is so simple and obvious that I can't believe I haven't already
run across it clearly stated and answered, but I sure don't recall doing so:
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| If the SDI is hugely expensive and yet ineffectual and worthless, why |
| are the Soviets against our attempting to create and deploy it? |
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One would expect that they would simply say nothing on the topic,
meanwhile snickering quietly at our folly behind closed doors.
Or are they reasoning that their public opposition to it will *encourage*
us to go ahead with it -- if they remained quiet on the issue, we would
drop it, so they talk it up to keep the pot boiling?
Or are they insecure enough about the issue that, if we went ahead with
a really-worthless Star Wars defense, investing billions with no return,
they would feel compelled to invest in their own version of a worthless
space defense system? So they are trying to save themselves from this fate?
Or do they believe it is a great and workable idea, and really fear it
as a true defense against their strategic weaponry?
[Note: I have no real idea if SDI is good or bad, feasible or impossible.
However, the above questions could be answered regardless of the true
quality and value of an SDI system.]
Will Martin
ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin
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Date: Tue, 25 Jun 85 09:43:06 EDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Nuclear Terrorism & Doomsday Machines
From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ at MIT-MC.ARPA>
And yet how much responsibility has the U.S. shown in allowing
Israel to acquire the bomb by siphoning off, through theft and
fraudulent tactics, American nuclear technology and materials?
(An occasional slap on the wrist does not count as responsible
restraint.) If the Soviet Union now looks the other way while one
of its client states pilfers its nuclear weapons technology, how
credibly can we protest?
Actually, I personally don't believe that Israel has "siphoned off"
nuclear technology and materials, but rather that she has acquired it
on her own. The 300 lbs of enriched U-235 missing some years ago has
never been conclusively linked to Israel. I recognize that this is a
judgment call.
The purpose of Permissive Action Links is to keep a stolen
bomb from going off (it gets disabled when the wrong code is
punched in). Finally, bombs are damned hard to make, even if
the raw material is (relatively) easy to get.
There is a great difference between being /impossible/ to make and
being /hard/ to make. Because the incentives for possessing these
devices are so great, if they are theoretically buildable by small
nations and groups, then eventually they will be built. And with
each passing year, the knowledge and means for constructing
nuclear devices inevitably seeps downward and outward from the
tight control of a select scientific priesthood to more and more
random people at large.
I distinguish between non-national groups and small nations. The
needed infrastructure for a nuclear weapon is BIG. I agree that a
small nation can probably, over time, do anything it wants to do. But
that's the only hope I seen anyway. The job of policy makers is not
to solve problems, but to muddle through for as long as they can
without disaster. Eventually disaster comes.
"Transport of so much dangerous material in open commerce may
well turn out to be the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry," he
says, "a number one target for terrorist theft."
I agree.
Mr. O'Keefe, author of the book ``Nuclear Hostages,''
an examination of nuclear war and nuclear terror, says,
``I believe that the greatest threat to civilization today
is the prospect of a terrorist-implemented nuclear
explosion.''
In my view, this is just nonsense. I believe that this is the
most likely possibility for a nuclear bomb to be used, but to
believe that it would mark the end of civilization is absurd.
It does NOT threaten civlization in the way that a 10 gigaton
war does.
Detonating ten or twenty devices might not end civilization, but it
would mangle it beyond recognition.
Where will you explode them to mangle it? (Besides, we started with
one bomb in the quotation above. How did it grow to 10-20? I can
plausibly imagine a terrorist group stealing *one* nuclear weapon.
20 don't believe.)
(By the war, Nuclear Hostages is not particularly compelling.
O'Keefe makes several wrong statements in it, and is not very
convincing about politics, strategy, or military affairs.)
I must confess that I have not yet read Mr. O'Keefe's book, but I
do know that he has enormous credibility. He is very highly
placed in the defense/intelligence communities, and probably knows
as much about nuclear weapons as anyone in the world. Until I've
been able to compare his detailed arguments against yours, I'm
inclined to treat his remarks with respect.
He knows a lot about how to *build* nuclear weapons; that is beyond
question. As to their safety and vulnerability from theft, I don't
know any more than I've read in the same articles you have read.
A small nuclear crazy state could not strike at the entire
world -- only the US and the SU can. They might strike at
someone, but not everyone.
Mr. O'Keefe, and some other experts, seem to be asserting that
small nuclear crazy states or groups /could/ hit, or credibly
threaten to hit, many cities or strategic sites around the world,
certainly enough to create an unimaginable disaster. That
possibility is the point of the article.
IF they could, it would be. No law of physics constrains it from
happening, so it is *possible*. If that is the point, I agree. If
you mean more than that, please indicate where in the article it says
this.
Perhaps we should be worrying a good deal more about the
potential behavior of small crazy states and groups,
especially those motivated by religious extremism and
apocalyptic belief systems, and somewhat less about the
plans and actions of the superpowers.
One nuclear detonation will change the world, but it won't
destroy all of us. I am worried about nuclear terrorism, and
even believe in pre-emptive strike to eliminate it, but I
repeat, the main problem is 10 gigatons and no way of
crontolling them.
We are not talking about one detonation, but many. If a small
nuclear crazy state can smuggle one device into, say, the United
States, it could just as easily smuggle in ten or more devices.
...The same tactic could be used against the Soviet Union.
But the same charges could be made against China or France. Once you
*assume* that this terrorist group has 20 weapons, then all things
become possible. I have not seen an argument to persuade me that a
terrorist group can get so many.
Terrorism against the SU is much harder, because their borders are far
more secure than ours.
I think the least likely scenario for the start of World War III
is that the U.S. or USSR will launch a nuclear attack on the
other; both sides have too much to lose, and are (with some
notable lapses) fundamentally rational.
Read Between Peace and War, Richard Lebow, Hopkins Press, if you want
this notion dispelled. Actually, my own fear is that of a minor
crisis between superpoers escalating out of control because each side
makes threats that are not believed and then must be enforced.
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?
Analysts who are concentrating exclusively on scenarios of
conventional warfare or nuclear conflict between the U.S. and
USSR, and who are diddling with the comparative minutiae of
U.S./Soviet strategic inventories, are, I think, misdirecting
their attention.
I agree: the US/SU inventories don't matter in detail.
Briefcase bombs in the hands of small fanatical powers may be of
much greater future strategic consequence than massive weapons
systems controlled by the superpowers that are for nearly all
purposes unusable.
I agree here too. Enormous strategic consequence yes. Apocalyptic,
no.
[Note from the Moderator: Read Fredrick Forsythe's thriller _The
Fourth Protocol_ for a view of what the Soviet Union might be able to
acomplish with the use of a vest pocket nuke. (Specifically, cause
NATO to disband.)
- Harold
]
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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 85 14:50:37 CDT
From: William Martin <control@ALMSA-1>
Subject: Krytrons
We have seen extensive mention of these krytrons in news items about
them being intercepted before being sent to Pakistan, or having been
sent to Israel, and also mention on the net and a general description
of them as a "fast-switch" type of device.
A couple points which I don't recall ever having been mentioned:
1) How much do these things cost, anyway? $1000 each? $10 each? If
they are cheap enough, maybe I'd like to buy one and sit it on my
mantelpiece as a curio...
2) The restrictions on sales of these that have been publicized
have been *export* restrictions. There have been no mention of
domestic sales restrictions -- the Pakistani was able to buy a batch
of them, and was caught by Customs trying to get them out of the
country. Are there any licenses or permits involved in buying these?
Aren't they mildly radioactive, and thus fall under the NRC regulations
for such things as tritium-containing night-sights and the like?
If not, and these things are "only useful for building atomic weapons",
as some news stories have implied, why are they available for public sale
at all? (I resent not being able to buy a simple modern rifle by mail if not
even that much restriction is imposed on something that can only be
described as "a key ingredient for atomic bombs".)
3) Aren't there dozens of other technical doohickeys out there just
as important to making atomic weaponry as krytrons? What makes these
devices so special? Or have the news media just not picked up on the
other 47 items that really are just as "incriminating"?
And a side note: We have (practically speaking) no customs inspections
on luggage *leaving* the country, except for explosive-sniffing dogs
and the like. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to smuggle tiny items like
these in personal luggage instead of shipping them air freight? After
all, the foreign customs at the receiving end isn't going to hassle
the carriers if they have some government document covering them (like
the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission order for the krytrons), or it
could simply have been arranged for the carriers to turn the goodies
over to their home-country customs who would then turn them over to
the government department which is busily building bombs in the hills.
This would avoid all the risks of US Customs examining bills of lading
and cartons which you get when shipping stuff as international
freight. I would think the people who got caught doing this maybe were
*told* to do it dumbly to get caught, maybe as a cover for the *real*
shipments which were continually going on in thousands of "civilian"
suitcases all along? (The conspiracy theory of history raises its
hugely-grinning head...)
If all this has been coverend in those issues of ARMS-D I happened to
miss, please forgive!
Regards,
Will Martin
ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin
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Date: 28 Jun 85 19:04:54 CDT (Fri)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@seismo
Subject: Can we detect nukes?
> ... Plutonium based weapons should be more detectable than
> uranium-235 based devices, since they are contaminated with Pu-240
> and 241 which decay with relatively short half-lives...
Weapons-grade plutonium is contaminated with as little Pu-240 and 241
as possible, since 240 in particular tends to mess up the physics of
a fission explosion.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
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Date: 28 Jun 85 18:38:17 CDT (Fri)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Subject: Nuclear Terrorism
> If anyone knows what Taylor is up to these days, I'd appreciate
> hearing about it. Last I heard he was running his own company,
> IRT (something like International Research Technology), but that was
> about 1972 or so. IRT does nuclear safety consulting, I believe.
Last I heard -- and this is secondhand, and I haven't confirmed it --
Taylor thought that if proposed increases in bomb-material safeguards
really were implemented, he would be reasonably satisfied about the
safety of US nuclear materials.
> ... Finally, bombs are damned hard to make, even if the raw
> material is (relatively) easy to get.
Ted Taylor was a professional bomb designer, and he thinks otherwise.
According to him, getting the materials is the only really hard part.
(This assumes that you don't care too much about building a
"professional" bomb with a precisely-predictable yield.) Virtually
all of the major bits of knowledge that you need to do your own design
are declassified now. As for actual construction, the Manhattan
Project did not use any overly fancy technology in their shops, and
their bombs worked just fine.
For all of you who are panting to build your own bomb, the book Phil
Lapsley mentioned -- "The Curve of Binding Energy", by John McPhee --
contains Taylor's unclassified-information-only design for a U-235
gun-type bomb estimated at a few kilotons.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
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[End of ARMS-D Digest]