arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (12/17/84)
From: Moderator <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA> Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 2 : Issue 77 Today's Topics: satire and other stuff Khrushchev again first-use Soviet government Soviet objectives Russian Ruthlessness The Beyond War Award NAS Nuclear Winter study ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 21:19:51 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: satire and other stuff > It is unfortunate that the network has difficulty conveying satire. It is > a useful [e.g., Jonathan Swift's "Modest proposal"] in that it takes arguments > to an extreme to see whether they fall apart or not (one opinion). Of course, an extreme view is always to be avoided in the real world. A satirical use of extremism usually carries with it an implication that the original views that are being satirized are equivalent to, or near the extreme represented in the satire. The present case is an example: To say the Soviet leaders cannot be trusted is NOT the same (or even suggestive of) the statement that we should actively seek their total elimination. Yet that was the implication in this case. > To say > that we should only look at facts (cold hard) is only part of the picture > (as others have pointed out). We show only those facts we want to show. > I know this because when I was in high school, I had a job designing > parts for the B-1 at Rockwell in LA. My higher ups, when they went to WDC > only presented what appeared good. It is not enough to say 'facts,' > they are only opinions (even 1+1=2 is an opinion). Yes, I was fired once for not witholding my opinion that a particular set of experimantal results (if computer simulations can be considered experimants) were fraudulently incorrect due to gross inadequacies in the computer model used. I still maintain that there really are cold hard facts about things in the world which are independent of anyone's opinion. Just because these are sometimes distorted or omitted by certain individuals does not mean that we should cease to look for them or that we should not try our best to make policy based on what we have. > Tell me (and the net), why we should not bomb the USSR like "we cut cancers > out the the body [pardon the Star Trek-like quality of this paraphrasing]" > here and now by your basis in logic? Let's not dink around with them! > [This is not my personal opinion for those who didn't read my first note > on the net. I will not call it satire.] > Do you let 'problems' float free at your work place? We cut cancers out of the body selectively. Bombs are not particularly selective. I have nothing against the Russian people, nor do I have any particular dislike of thier leaders (aside from the fact that they are a ruthless bunch and can't be trusted). How would a bomb be engineered to selectively remove the aquisitive tendencies of a foreign government? The dedication of the Soviet leaders to world control is, in fact, the main (possibly only) objection I have against the Soviets. Certainly it's this objective of theirs that makes me concerned obout arms control. Talk about extremes though. I have never advocated ANY military action against the Soviets on this network (or any other). If distrust is equivalent to a declaration of war, then the other extreme is that trust is equivalent to intimate sexual activity. By the way (talking about extremes has got me to thinking about some that aren't), why is it that Communism and National Socialism are always regarded as opposites? Every time that you make an anti- communist remark, someone is bound to label you a fascist. Certainly their roots and government styles are similar - they both started as a form of socialism. Both styles of government insist on complete control of the military, the press, and the economy. Both keep dissidents and 'undesireables' in line through organized terrorism and massive secret police efforts. Both tend to be expansionist, and VERY dogmatic about it too. Is the difference really only in how they decide who is to be allowed into the ruling elite (one chooses the working class, the other middle and upper classes)? Either I'm missing something obvious or everyone else is - I'd like to know. Personal note- sorry Eugine, been in New Mexico all of my life. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 21:23:22 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Khrushchev again (not a real nice guy) > From jlg: > I can't pretend to have read 'all the available evidence' about Khrushchev > (at least I can spell the name), but from what I have read, I can't > conclude > that he was really a 'positive force for change'. > A single example ought to clarify the issue. To have become the Soviet > leader in the mid-fifties, Khrushchev must have been a fairly high-level > official even under the Stalin regime. This means that he must have > survived one or more of the purges that took place. I wonder how > Khrushchev survived it? ... > Well, that's how he survived - he was in charge! > What does this have to do with what he did as top honcho of the Soviet > Union? Well, there was the invasion of Hungary in 1956, there was the Berlin wall, there was the Cuban missile crisis.... After Stalin died there were four men in the running for the top post in the government, after just three months one of them (Beria) was murdered - guess who had that done? All this is irrelevant to the original point that I made (which is given below). What is there in Khrushchev's past that allows a director of purge activities to EVER be regarded as a peaceful man BY AMERICAN STANDARDS. When you lead people to believe that the Soviet leaders have familiar characteristics - you are leading them down the garden path. > That's not the only > example from Khrushchev's past, but it's sufficient to make my original > point again. ALL SOVIET LEADERS ARE "DANGEROUS HAWKS" BY ANY NORMAL > AMERICAN STANDARDS. Soviet leaders only get to positions of power after > they have proven themselves, time and again, to be TOTALLY committed > to the communist party and the stated goals thereof (they also have to > be cunning, resourceful, tenacious, ...). > As sec'y of the Communist party, he was responsible for > placing the military under a greater degree of civilian control; Civilian control was a political move, Khrushchev didn't trust the military leaders at the time. > he > tried to push to SU towards a nuclear posture that resembled minimum > deterrence; he saw that nuclear weapons change the nature of war in an > establishment that strongly opposed that observation. It was Stalin that wanted nuclear weapons treated as 'just big bombs'. Khrushchev and his associates (not the military) didn't see any conflict in assigning more importance to nuclear arms. As for 'minimum deterrence', he was mainly interested in the quickest to achieve superiority over the American position. Since the American nuclear deterrent was already great, Khrushchev saw the that the quickest scheme was not through direct confrontation, but through coersion and subversion in the third world - a tactic which the Soviets still use with great effect today. Khrushchev didn't ignore the nuclear situation. Developement went on in the Soviet Union at a breakneck pace all through Khrushchev's reign (as it has done since as well). What Khrushchev did was to hold production at a minimum until the types of weapons that the Soviets could build would be clearly superior to the American. For this reason resources, that would otherwise have gone to production of weapons that were inferior, could be used to more effect elsewhere. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 21:29:08 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: first-use > [...] How many people believe in a no-first-use > policy? about 70%, according to a recent poll done. How many people > think we have such a policy? about 85%. > people here make policy. I don't know anyone that believes in the no-first-use policy. You might as well sell-out NATO right away and have done with it. I think a no-first-strike (unprovoked attack on stratigic targets inside the Soviet Union) policy might be reasonable. Of course, when you talk of such things, you have to be more specific. The US has not used nuclear weapons AT ALL since WWII, and the Soviets have NEVER used them - by this logic it's clear that both countries have a de facto no-first-use policy already. How would you enforce an explicit no-first-use policy? By the time someone has violated the policy, it's too late to do anything about it. Complete disarming of both sides would certainly prevent first-use, but how do you verify that? It's clear that I'm not too sure what you mean by 'no-first-use', please specify and we can discuss it at length. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 21:49:17 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Soviet government I have posted several articles to this discussion group which have been deliberately vague on the internal structure of the Soviet governmental structure. At the same time I have encouraged participants that this is an important thing to be aware of. So far no one has made even a slight gesture of understanding (one person noted that Khrushchev was the communist party leader). So I will make an explicit challenge: What office(s) and title(s) must a man hold to be considered the undisputed head of the Soviet government? What bureaucratic structures are DIRECTLY beneath said leader in the government heirarchy? What official mechanisms exist for the change in leadership should that prove necessary (current leader dies for example)? I claim that anyone who cannot answer all three of these questions (at least) is not in a very good position to assess policy that involves the Soviets. Two other questions are paramount: What position(s) did the current Soviet head occupy before he became the top man (LOTS of points off if you can't remember his name)? What men are likely successors if the current leader should need to be replaced, and what are their posts? Send your answers to me if you like, but I won't score them. The best score would be if I could get a significant number of people to look this stuff up. People don't make good decisions in an information vacuum. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 21:27:06 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Soviet objectives > From: jlg at LANL (Jim Giles) > I am willing to accept that the communist movement is now somewhat > fragmented, perhaps more than you pointed out (remember Poland). But > you should not confuse lack of success with lack of intent. If the > only Soviet interest is its own social and economic survival then why > does it spend over $12 million per DAY supporting Cuba ($4.5 billion > per year divided by 365 days - 1976 figures). And what POSSIBLE > interests are the Soviets protecting in Nicaragua (don't tell me that > they are protecting a formative socialist country, because without > Soviet intervention the country would never have had a socialist > revolution). > Rhetorical questions are great as a debating technique because you > don't really expect answers. Rhetorical questions are NOT questions for which you don't expect answers, they are questions which imply or insinuate answers without directly declaring them. As such they are a weak form of declarative statement. But, since you don't like them, I will rephrase the last part of the preceeding paragraph to make the point of the questions explicit: Soviet support of Cuba and covert actions in Nicaragua [not to mention the invasion of Afghanistan] contradict the claim that the ONLY interest of the Soviet Union is its own economic and social survival. > Let me retaliate. What possible reason > could the US have for supporting South Korea? Why do we have a > security interest in the Phillippines? What possible reason does the > US have in providing tobacco supports while it also provides money to > publicize the dangers of smoking? I don't see what these questions have to do with the subject at hand. YOU (or someone, I think it was you) made the claim the the Soviet leaders were ONLY interested in the economic and social survival of the Soviet Union. I never made a similar claim about the US, so the above questions don't challenge my world view in the slightest. [By the way, I agree that the US is at the mercy of too many special interests and lobbies. If you know of any solution which still leaves a freely accessable government, let me know.] > [...] Why do you assume that the Soviet Union has a > coherent policy when no other government in the world does? Do you > think the Soviet Union would go to war if we were to invade Cuba? I > think not. How about Nicaragua? I think not. The Soviets intervene > when they see that an advantage is to be gained, whether political, > economic, or whatever. So does the U.S. Well, at least NOW you're admitting that the Soviets have interests outside their own country. By the way, we have an official agreement with the Soviets that we won't invade Cuba. One would think that this would be just a matter between us and the Cubans - but not so! Said official agreement was made as part of the settlement of the Cuban missile crisis (which many analysts say was the worst American defeat in the entire cold war, we backed down on ALL of the Soviet conditions for the removal of the missiles). > I think it's much more important to understand more about Russian politics > and government. Unlike the US, Soviet PEOPLE don't make policy. > Nor do they in the U.S. How many people believe in a no-first-use > policy? about 70%, according to a recent poll done. How many people > think we have such a policy? about 85%. Don't tell me that the > people here make policy. (I am not arguing that they should; I think > the current system is better than the Russian alternative.) People may not directly MAKE policy in the US, but if we consistently disagree with the people who do we can (and often do) remove them from office. We even have a ritual that occurs every 2 years in which we actually exercise this ability to remove leaders from office and replace them. The Soviets have no such system. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Dec 84 07:56:59 PST From: Richard Foy <foy@AEROSPACE> To: arms-d@mit-mc.arpa Subject: The Beyond War Award I wonder how many of the participants in this discussion group saw the award cerimonies which presented the The Beyond War Award for 1984 to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. It was a very powerful experience and I believe that it should be required viewing for anyone who wants ato comment on or voate on the issues of nuclear armaments and policy. ------------------------------ Date: 14 December 1984 15:11-EST From: Oded Anoaf Feingold <OAF @ MIT-MC> Subject: Russian Ruthlessness cc: ARMS-D @ MIT-MC, ARMS-DISCUSSION @ MIT-MC Oops, have I missed something? Are the Russians more ruthless than the Americans? The French? The Cambodians? Vietnamese? Afghani Mujahedin? Turks? Hausas? Israelis? Syrians? Chermans? Iranis? Iraqis? Indonesians? Ugandans? Japanese? Belgians? Salvadorans? Evidence, please. Would the people claiming that the Russkies are something special, and as a result not-negotiable-with, or perhaps not-negotiable-with though nothing special, please indicate their reasons. In particular, would the people proclaiming our strategic moral stance superior to theirs kindly indicate their reasons. [Which of the nationalities listed above has FAILED to commit genocide as an instrument of internal or foreign policy in the 20th century? Or does that not suffice as evidence of ruthlessness?] I am raising the spectre of our ruthlessness being comparable to theirs. Given that we have suffered so little since the Civil War, and had to be tugged into WWI and WWII, what excuse do we have? Thank you. Oded ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 1984 0751-PST From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: NAS Nuclear Winter study To: arms-d@MIT-MC From a 12 Dec 84 New York Times article (P10): "... the first major assessment for the Federal Government of the theory of 'nuclear winter', was prepared by a committee of the National Research Council. The ... report cautioned that detailed predictions of climatic cooling were unreliable because of 'enormous uncertainties' in the data ... Nonetheless, Dr. George F. Carrier [of Harvard]... who was chairman of the 18-member committee, said ... that the panel's findings were 'quite consistent' with studies that originally outlined the theory of nuclear winter ... it [the committee] commented that the climatic effects of nuclear war might threaten populations far removed from target areas and pose major risks to any nation that initiated the use of nuclear weapons. And although the panel did not endorse any numerical estimates it said that drops in temperature of 18 to 45 degrees might last for months in the north Temperate Zone, with near total loss of light over much of the Northern Hemisphere. ... Copies of the report, 'The Effects on the Atmosphere of a Major Nuclear Exchange", can be obtained for $14.50 from the National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20418." Some slight negative bias may be inferred - the NAS did the 1975 study "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear-Weapons Detonations" which didn't pick up on the nuclear winter effects. ------- ------------------------------ [End of ARMS-D Digest]