arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA (12/14/84)
From: Moderator <ARMS-D@MIT-MC.ARPA> Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 2 : Issue 76 Today's Topics: Russian Ruthlessness Alternative to MAD Implications of the nuclear winter ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Dec 84 18:31 GMT From: Bruce Failor <FAILOR%LLL@LLL-MFE.ARPA> Subject: Russian Ruthlessness To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA > On one hand, "if we understood more about Russian ... culture, we > would have a higher regard...," and on the other hand, "the ruthlessness > ... may be due more to ... culture ... than to ... economic system ..." > > So should one therefore have a higher regard for a people and culture > characterized by ruthlessness? > Forgive my naivete, but I do not understand why the above is an > argument in favor of doing anything but girding oneself against, > not merely communist Russia, but Russia for all time (unless and > until the culture itself changes). > > David sde@mitre-bedford I guess what I had in mind was to understand why the Russians are so ruthless and militaristic. They have suffered from invasion and war for centuries. Consider their suffering during WWII-- Of the 22 million Allied lives lost in the war, an estimated 20 million were lost by the Soviet Union. By comparison, the United States, though it made an important financial and military contribution, lost only 300 thousand (1.5 percent of the Soviet loss). The Nazi invaders destroyed and plundered over 1100 Russian villages . . . . Many historians hold that the Soviet Union came very close to defeating the Germans single-handedly. Churchill said that Russia's fighting men "did the main work of tearing the guts out of the German army." (from "The Logic of International Relations" by Rosen and Jones) In the November issue of Physics Today, there was a review of Dyson's most recent book on nuclear arms policy. There is supposed to be a good section in that book on the Russian people, written with help from knowledgeable historians (Keenan for one), that supports the view that the Russians are militaristic not because they want to conquer the world, but rather because they feel it is necessary to insure their survival as a nation. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Dec 84 18:46 GMT From: Bruce Failor <FAILOR%LLL@LLL-MFE.ARPA> Subject: Alternative to MAD To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA I read the review of Dyson's latest book on nuclear arms policy in the November issue of Physics Today. If I understand it correctly, Dyson is advocating the use of conventional weapons for missile defense. What does everyone think of this? It seems that if nuclear nonpolifer- ation is impossible, the mutually-assured-destruction stand-off between the USA and the USSR will be destabilized by nuclear arms development in other countries. And then there is the argument put forth in the book that the Soviets think it is possible to survive a nuclear war--they have survived many others. This would imply that MAD is not as strong a deterrent for them as it is for Americans, which would also indicate the need for a missile defense. ------------------------------ Date: 7 December 1984 12:29-EST From: Oded Anoaf Feingold <OAF @ MIT-MC> Subject: Implications of the nuclear winter To: rudd%lsu.csnet @ CSNET-RELAY cc: ARMS-D @ MIT-MC Re your boxing analogy of 11/02/84, nuclear winter is not qualitatively different from other possible ecocidal effects of a nuclear exchange. For example, Schell (1) makes the case for several types of serious damage to the ecosphere. In the extreme, any one of them could be disastrous to human civilization or human life, hence not effectively different from nuclear winter. Combinations and interactions suggest that we could lose it all even without pressing any particular failure mechanism to take full blame. The only substantive difference is that NW has been modeled and numbers assigned. Hence it has the imprimatur of scientific respectability, and you can diddle the inputs to see what happens to the outputs, thereby having fun. That doesn't make it more likely, more severe, or better understood than other effects, including presently unsuspected ones. [After all, the models may simply be wrong.] It only means that the representation has been developed to the point where one can make quantitative claims and assign homework problems. Here I quibble with your simile: Nuclear winter does NOT change the character of a nuclear holocaust from spectator sport to shotgun duels in a rubber lifeboat, because there was never good reason to assume it was anything else. It merely provides a nice, understandable mechanism by which we all die. Extending the rubber boat analogy, quantifying how long it would take the passengers to succumb to hypothermia once the boat sinks doesn't add radically new information. Presumably, the other hazards suffice. [Would it help if someone "disproved" nuclear winter (come on in, the water's fine)?] And as for moral responsibility .... The idea of nuclear have-nots forcing the haves to eliminate the threat is wishful thinking. Ants don't kick elephants around. If a solution exists, it exists right here, in the heart of the beast. My guess is that progress might happen if gummint policy changes from jingoism and ideology to hard thinking. But that takes humility, and at present I suspect we're too busy standing tall. Aw shucks. Oded (1) Schell, Jonathan _The_ _Fate_ _of_ _the_ _Earth_, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1982 ------------------------------ [End of ARMS-D Digest]