arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (02/16/85)
From: Moderator <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 3 : Issue 7
Today's Topics:
Symposium on Space C^3
Book "The Threat" (3 msgs)
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Telephone: (405) 360-5172
Organization: Emulation Language Project
From: Kurt F. Sauer <mtxinu!ea!uokvax!emks@UCB-VAX.ARPA>
Date: 1 Feb 85 00:31 CST (Friday)
To: Arms Discussion Digest <ea!mtxinu!ucbvax!"ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA"@Berkeley>
Subject: CFP: Symposium on Space C^3
Here's a CFP in which readers of the ARMS-DISCUSSION might be intereted:
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C A L L F O R P A P E R S
Symposium on
SPACE C^3--KEY TO TOMORROW
August 12, 13, 14 and 15, 1985
USAF Academy, Colorado
TOPICS:
Suggested topics for inclusion in Space C3. Unclassified and
Classified Papers Include:
o Current and Future Satellites as C3 Resources
o Space Network Design and Control
o Space Surveillance Systems as C3 Resources
o C2 Requirements of Space Surveillance Systems
o Surveillance Data Display Philosophies
o Surveillance Technology Overvies
o Ops Cncepts in Strategic and Tactical Environments
o Impacts of New Technologies/Systems on Commanders
o Strategic Defense Initiatives and Issues
o Training/Education Requirements for Space Operations Personnel
o Space System Autonomy Techniques
o Space Hardening Techniques
o Space and Ground Mobile Dispersion
o Replenishment and Redundancy
o Design for Trans- and Post-Attack Operation
o Offense/Defense Techniques
o Satellite Self-Defense Techniques
SCHEDULE FOR SUBMISSION:
- One page Unclassified abstract to include title and short bio-
graphical data of author 15 March 1985, include complete address
and phone number.
- Announcement of selected papers--15 April 1985.
- Camera ready manuscript--15 June 1985.
- Paper presentation sessions will be conducted on 13, 14, and 15
August based on selected abstracts. Since there will be Clasi-
fied and Unclassified sessions, all papers must be clearable up
to U.S. SECRET.
- Authors should obtain company/military clearance prior to final
submission of papers.
SUBMIT ABSTRACTS TO:
Major Michael Guyote
Department of Electrical Engineering
United States Air Force Academy
Colorado Springs CO 80840
AC 303 472-3190
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Kurt F. Sauer <kurt@uokvax.UUCP>
2420 Bonnybrook Street
Norman OK 73071-4324
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Date: Thu, 7 Feb 85 09:56:07 PST
From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA>
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Book "The Threat"
I wonder if the factual information contained in The Threat will change
anyone's mind about the "need" for any weopon systems.
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Date: Thu, 7 Feb 85 11:01:58 pst
From: alice!wolit@UCB-VAX.ARPA
To: arms-d@UCB-VAX.ARPA
Jong's excellent review of "The Threat" included:
> Cockburn stops just short of
> suggesting that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are engaged in tacit
> disarmament by means of rendering their own weapon systems
> impotent (squandering hundreds of billions of dollars in the
> process).
A recent (1/28/85) letter in Aviation Week makes an interesting
(though surely debatable) related point:
... Let's face it. The reason we build these wonderful
military and aerospace systems is to keep people employed.
The function of a healthy intelligence system is to insure we
never use them destructively.
In the same issue of ARMS-D, Herb Lin asks:
> Do different types of force (bombers, ICBM's etc) get different
> messages? I.e. is the bit stream identical?
For a good overview of this whole issue, see Paul Bracken's "The
Command and Control of Nuclear Forces," Yale Univ. Press, 1983.
My understanding is that the different forces do NOT receive the same
message. Submarines, for example, are not even under the same command
(SAC) as bombers and ICBM. In addition, current technology limits
communication with submerged subs to extremely low data rates -- I
doubt that DoD would handicap the rest of its communications network
in order to maintain this low-level compatibility.
Also, the control by the National Command Authority (i.e, the
Presidential "football" codes, and other links in that chain of
command) extends over theatre and tactical nuclear weapons as well as
strategic ones, thus including elements of Air Force and Naval TACAIR
and army units as well. It is hard to imagine that these forces
receive the same "go codes" as ICBM and SLBM crews.
Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
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Date: 12 Feb 85 11:28:08 EST (Tuesday)
From: Robert Bloom AMSTE-TOI 3775 <rbloom@APG-1.ARPA>
Subject: Rebuttal of the Book Review "The Threat"
To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
Cc: rbloom@APG-1.ARPA
I found the book review by jong@HIS-BILLERICA-MULTICS quite
interesting, so much so that I printed a copy and gave it to a
co-worker that once worked in US Army intelligence. I've
attached his comments. He does not yet have an arpa mailbox, so
forward any direct comments to me and I will make sure he gets
them.
--rbloom@apg-1
--> Date: Fri, 8 Feb 85
--> Subject: Re: Book Review "The Threat," by Andrew Cockburn
It is not surprising nor unresonable that the vast majority of
Americans derive their information on strategic matters from open
sources like "Time," "The Washington Post," and Andrew Cockburn's
"The Threat: Inside The Soviet Military Machine." What never
ceases to amaze me is the number of ostensibly intelligent,
educated people who actually believe they are "in the know" upon
ingesting such information. Are there really that many writers
so egotistical as to think that their research in the public
domain reveals the equivalent of information collected, analyzed
and protected by the intelligence community? That many readers
(and book reviewers) who lack the ability to enjoy a well written
book while concurrently understanding that a commercial publicist
probably does not have the same quantity or quality of
intelligence as the Department of Defense?
I purchased the Cockburn book as soon as it came out, as I
have a tendency to acquire any published material on the Soviet
Union as soon as it is available. (A financially self-
destructive habit) At the time I was a Captain in the army, in an
intelligence assignment with the specific job of studying Soviet
and satellite military equipment and organization. I possessed a
TS-TK/G clearance and access and was in constant contact with
masses of information I could never keep up with. Then as now, I
considered myself a very small and insignificant fish in a giant
intelligence pond- yet I know I had at my disposal vastly more
hard copy than Mr. Cockburn had access to.
No amount of war stories from former defense officials or
anecdotes from emigres can substitute for carefully analyzed,
confirmed and corroborated hard copy intelligence, even if they
are injected with spicy, classified "leaked" information.
(Another lesson in becoming an educated reader of news and world
affairs: those "leaks" breathlessly reported by the networks,
news services and other Jack Andersons of this world are usually
quite carefully and deliberately "leaked" for purposes of
influencing opinion or achieving other advantage.)
All this does not mean I disagree with the fact that the book
is well researched and well written. Given the sources
available, I was very impressed by the insight, and level of
detail with which the author describes the Soviet forces. He is
right on the mark in his discussion of morale, discipline and
demographic problems across the military, and is quite right
about the comparative low quality of NCO leadership, and shoddy
equipment and logistics, among others. It is his conclusions
that trouble me.
There is no question that the Pentagon exaggerates the nature
of the threat. The mistake made by many, including the author
and the reviewer, is to conclude that such erroneous
overestimation necessarily means the exact opposite reality to be
true-that the threat is not so great that our current defenses
can't handle it. It is an unfortunate fact that an apathetic
public forces government to resort to hyperbole in order to
arouse awareness of our strategic position. (Apathy that is
perhaps due in part to a false sense of security nurtured by
semi-informed writers.) It would be terribly dangerous to
believe that the exaggeration is enormously disproportionate, by
a factor of say, 2 or 3; the reality is more around a factor of
1/8 or 1/10.
Cockburn's conclusion that official warnings about the Soviet
threat are overblown, based on his own findings from research in
the public domain, is at best irresponsible. The most
crackerjack intelligence analyst shudders at the prospect of
making such extrapolations when he has researched and re-
researched hard intelligence data of a nature Mr. Cockburn can
only dream of having access to. The fact is, no matter how
inefficient or unwieldy the Soviet military machine is, it is not
a paper tiger, it is a severe threat to U.S. security, and it
does have the combat potential to defeat NATO- and the U.S., in
conventional or nuclear warfare.
-- J. Miller
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[End of ARMS-D Digest]