root@ucbvax.UUCP (05/30/84)
From @MIT-MC:JLarson.PA@Xerox.ARPA Wed May 23 23:04:42 1984
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 2 : Issue 39
Today's Topics:
General Graham's reputation
Libya's Got the Bomb
Re: Technological vs Political Solutions
third-party-intermediaries-plan
Scientific American ASAT piece
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Date: 21 May 1984 22:48-EDT
From: James A. Cox <APPLE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: I am beginning to question General Graham's (&company) reputation
To: REM @ MIT-MC
cc: APPLE @ MIT-MC, ARMS-D @ MIT-MC
In-reply-to: Msg of 19 May 1984 18:18-EDT from Robert Elton Maas <REM>
I also recently got a misleading letter from General Graham's High
Frontier group. The deception began even before I opened the
envelope. The return address did not list the sender, only an address
in Washington, D.C., along with an official-looking warning "Penalty
for illegal use." Printed just above my name and address was the
notice, "CHECKS ENCLOSED--HANDLE WITH CARE." Naturally that whetted
my curiosity. Upon opening the envelope, I found it was simply yet
another dreary solicitation for funds. The "checks" mentioned on the
envelope [actually there was just one check] were just a promotion
gimmick, as I should have realized. Some unamed Wash., D.C.
"foundation," the letter said, had promised to match contributions to
High Frontier, and a "check" from the "High Frontier Matching Gift
Account" on the Security National Bank of D.C. for $25, payable to
High Frontier, was enclosed. I was supposed to return that check
along with my own check for $25, so as to make the former one valid.
One thing that seems especially fishy about this whole matter is the
ommission of the name of the "foundation" which supposedly made the
conditional gift. As I said, the name on the "check" is just "HF
Matching Gift Account," and the signature looks like a bunch of loops,
totally illegible. It makes me wonder whether there really is any
such foundation.
High Frontier may not be doing anything illegal, but their deceptive
letter certainly isn't wholly ethical. And although unlike REM I tend
to agree with their publicly-stated aims, they can forget about
getting any money from me.
- James Cox
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Date: 21 May 1984 22:56-EDT
From: James A. Cox <APPLE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Libya's Got the Bomb
To: REM @ MIT-MC
cc: APPLE @ MIT-MC, ARMS-DISCUSSION @ MIT-MC, LIN @ MIT-MC
In-reply-to: Msg of 13 May 1984 17:12-EDT from Robert Elton Maas <REM>
BMD would only defend against ICBMs. Libya, if it ever got a bomb and
decided to use it against the U.S., would be most unlikely to deliver
it by ICBM.
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Date: 21 May 84 23:45:39 EDT
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Technological vs Political Solutions
To: REM@MIT-MC.ARPA, arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>" of 21 May 84 22:00:00 EDT
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
The day may come when as a matter of social morality (Not political)
the use of nuclear (or CBW) weapons on a planet's surface will be
seen in the same light as slavery or cannibalism. It may even happen
in the next century. But it won't happen before the first nuclear war.
And I'm not holding my breath.
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Then we're doomed, all of use who live in or near cities and
have all our families (if any) in or near cities and depend on
food and water from elsewhere to survive and who depend on
computer networks and other forms of technology to make life bearable.
I doubt it. By all accounts, the first nuclear exchange will be
a small one (< 10 warheads) probably in the Middle East, though
possibly in Africa or SE Asia. Most serious analysts feel that
a fullscale global US-USSR conflict is remote.
After such a (small) exchange, I suspect that most people will
adopt a "Was THAT all?" attitude about it, and the antinukewar
movement will lose a lot of credibility (whether they deserve to
or not). People have a desperate need to believe that they are
not going to be cremated in their sleep tonight.
Thus after 2000 or so, small-scale nuclear conflict won't be nearly
so "unthinkable" and will probably become fairly common throughout
the next century. Global radioactivity rates may rise--your chance
of dying of cancer may go from 16% to 18%--but the governments will
keep at it whenever they see a short-term advantage.
Ultimately, the use of nuclear weapons will have become so common
and "thinkable" that a global convulsion, the nuclear equivalent of
WWI, will occur. That's the point where it would be really nice to
be off the planet.
--JoSH
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Date: Tue 22 May 84 09:50:41-PDT
From: NETSW.MARK@USC-ECLB.ARPA
Subject: third-party-intermediaries-plan
To: arms-discussion@MIT-MC.ARPA
cong. downey of ny is joining with
a group of 'third-party' leaders (palme,gandhi,popandreiou,de la madrid)
who want to act as intermediaries in a camp-david-like approach where they
take proposals to us and sovs and ask not for agreement but for objections,
they would keep iterating the process until the objections of each side
were small enough to be acceptable to both.
The idea of third-party intermediaries is good because they are not bound up
in hardened positions on the actual arms-details. Also, as the proponents
have stated, it is easier for a superpower to criticize a proposal which
it doesnt like, than to accept a proposal. This sort of 'ombudsman' approach
can also be useful NOW since the previous bilateral talks are have broken
down.
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Date: 23 May 1984 0651-PDT
From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA
Subject: Scientific American ASAT piece
To: armsd@MIT-MC
In the June 84 isssue of Scientific American (Vol 250, #6) there is
an article titled "Antisatellite Weapons" by Garwin, Gottfried, and Hafner.
Some quotes:
"... The advent of antisatellite waepons would seem to imply that the
beneficial role of satellites in arms control, confidence building and
conflict resolution had been judged less important than their ability
to support actual military operations. In what follows we shall take
issue with this assessment. Furthermore, we shall argue that there is
still an opportunity to negotiate a militarily significant and
verifiable constraint on the growth of antisatellite technology that
would be in the security interest of the U.S. and the world as a
whole. ...
The orbits of most of these [military] satellites fall into four broad
categories: (1) low orbits, ... roughly circular, have a period of
about 100 minutes and have altitudes ranging from about 100 kilometers
up to several thousand kilometers; (2) geosynchronous orbits ... ;
(3)highly elliptical orbits, which descend to an altitude of several
hundred kilometers at their perigee ... and rise to an apogee ... of
some 40,000 kilometers over the Northern Hemisphere, and (4)
semisynchronous orbits, which are roughly circular in an inclined
plane at an altitude of about 20,000 kilometers. ...
The persistent U.S. lead in microelectronics and other advanced
technologies has led to U.S. satellites that are much more
sophisticated, more reliable and longer-lived than their Russian
counterparts. Longevity is particulary important for high-altitude
sateliites because of the high cost of launching a satellite into such
an orbit. As aresult the U.S. has been able to sustain a variety of
satellite functions with fewer satellite networks, and it has operated
them with less frequent replacements. Although some U.S. military
satellites are still in low orbits and vulnerable to the present
Russian antisatellite system, most U.S. satellites are at altitudes
far beyond its reach.
The military satellites of the U.S.S.R., on the other hand, are
predominantly in low orbits, and they also have much shorter
lifetimes. This circumstance presumably reflects both operational
choices and technological weakness. ...
U.S. Department of Defense officials have often asserted that the far
greater frequency of Russian satellite launches demonstrates that the
military space program of the U.S.S.R. is much larger than that of the
U.S. The disparity in launch frequency, however, can be completely
accounted for by the much shorter lifetime of the Russian satellites.
... Comparisons based on expenditures devoted to the two military
space programs should also be viewed with caution; the same
methodology would lead to the conclusion that the U.S.S.R. is a more
abundant food producer than the U.S. ...
All antisatellite weapons currently deployed or undergoing field tests
have a maximum altitude of several thousand kilometers or less. Hence
they could attack satellites only in low orbits or in highly
elliptical ones. Since the early-warning, navigation,
attack-assessment and communications satellites essential to the U.S.
strategic forces are all in very high orbits, they are not at risk in
the near term. The U.S.S.R. faces a somewhat greater potential
threat, since some of its essential communications satellites and all
its early-warning satellites are currently in highly elliptical
Molniya orbits. ...
The parts of the C^3I system essential to the strategic forces of each
side are largely immune to antisatellite attacks for the time being,
and low-orbit satellites that survive such attacks would be of
questionable utility in the havoc created on the ground by a strategic
nuclear exchange. ...
The ability to destroy low-orbit satellites, coupled with the fear that the
opponent may at any moment attack one's own satellites, could therefore
create an irresistable temptation to remove the opponent's satellites.
As a consequence the ability to destroy low-orbit satellites promptly
could inflame a political crisis or a minor conflict that might otherwise
have been resolved by diplomacy if there had been no antisatellite
weapons. Since it is widely believed that a nuclear war is most likely to
start as a low-level confrontation, the current generation of antisatellite
weapons is clearly more than just another hazard in an already very dangerous
world.
An antisatellite weapon can attack its prey in various ways. The
current Russian antisatellite weapon, for instance, is a co-orbital
interceptor: it is launched into an orbit similar to that of its
target, and as it approaches its target it explodes in a swarm of
pellets. The U.S. antisatellite weapon is a direct-ascent
interceptor: it is projected into the path of its target satellite by
a rocket, which in turn is carried to high altitude by an airplane.
Destruction is by direct impact; there is no explosion.
Other kinds of antisatellite weapon have been proposed, but we shall
describe here only two weapons that are of particular significance.
The first weapon is a space mine: a small satellite carrying an
explosive charge that accompanies its potential victim for weeks or
months and is fired by remote command. The second is a laser system,
which can be based on the ground, in the air, or in space. ...
Although the Russian 1968 design is fairly reliable, that version is
susceptible to such countermeasures as jamming or deception of the
radar homing device or evasive maneuvering on detection of launch,
since the interception takes some three hours. The potentially defter
homing nad maneuvering techniques of the later tests have so far
performed very poorly.
Apart from these shortcomings in execution, the Russian antisatllite
system suffers from several basic conceptual flaws. First, a
satellite can be attacked only when its ground track runs close to the
launch site of the antisatellite weapon, a condition that is satisfied
onlt for satellite orbits with inclinations higher than the latitude
of the antisatellite weapon's launch site. This happens only twice a
day, and so one must wait an average of six hours to attack a given
satellite. Second, the heavy antisatelliteweapon itself requires a
massive booster rocket, which can be launched only from a limited
number of facilities in the U.S.S.R. Third, it is difficult to fire
such massive liquid-fueled boosters in rapid succession from a single
launch site. Fourth, the highest altitude reached in the Russian
tests (about 2,400 kilometers) is far below the orbits of the important
U.S. navigation, early-warning and communications satellites.
Taken together, these factors lead to the estimate that it would take
the Russian antisatellite force a week or more to destroy all U.S.
satellites within its reach. ...
The two-stage U.S. booster, which was test fired from an F-15 fighter
... is about 5 meters longs; its payload (the non-explosive homing
vehicle) is some 30 centimeters long and weighs about 15 kilograms.
The three-stage Russian booster ... is approximately 45 meters long;
its payload ... is roughly 6 meters long and weighs more than 2,000
kilograms. ...
If the U.S. were to invest in the required control facilities and
bases, it could thereby acquire a force that could destroy all the
low-orbit satellites of the U.S.S.R in a matter of hours. ...
The entire post-Hiroshima experience demonstrates that neither
superpower can long maintain a military advantage in any technology
presenting a grave threat to the other, and that the outcome of all
such competition is a reduced level of security for both sides. There
is no evidence that an unrestrained contest in space weaponry would be
an exception to this rule."
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[End of ARMS-D Digest]