daemon@ucbvax.UUCP (05/09/84)
From @MIT-MC:JLarson.PA@Xerox.ARPA Wed May 9 01:53:24 1984 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 2 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: Freeman Dyson at Stanford, REM's proposal, interesting observation, Politics and missile defense technology, Technological vs Political Solutions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 May 1984 0719-PDT From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: Freeman Dyson at Stanford To: armsd@MIT-MC On Tuesday, 8 May at 7:30PM in the Terman Auditorium on the Stanford campus Freeman Dyson will present the 4th annual Arms Control Guest Lecture. Dyson is a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. He has spoken and written widely about the ethical dilemmas of nuclear weapons, and has recently published a new book, "Weapons and Hope", excerpts of which appeared in the New Yorker [and on Arms-D] earlier this year. ------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu 3 May 84 09:48:22-PDT From: WATERMAN@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: comments re: REM's proposal To: REM@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: arms-discussion@MIT-MC.ARPA I think your proposal contains a very valuable synthesis which can appeal both to those focusing upon a freeze AND to those focusing upon BMD. By first reducing numbers of missiles etc. and by pulling them back we would THEN be at a point where a manageable, feasible, bearable-cost BMD system could contribute to stratgeic stabilization. By insisting first on massive reductions, we insure that any efforts spent on BMD would in fact be 'aimed' at strategic-stabilization, not strategic-superiority. ------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu 3 May 84 10:00:15-PDT From: WATERMAN@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: addendum to comments on REM's proposal To: REM@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: arms-discussion@MIT-MC.ARPA REM has proposed a plan which accomodates BMD as a component, but only after massive arsenal reductions have been achieved. Thus BMD AFTER A FREEZE could be a stabilizing factor. In order to go forward in the BMD direction under any scenario, it is probably necessary (??) to abbrogate previous treaties intersecting BMD. Hence , to effectuate the scenario REM proposes, it would seem necessary that a major multi-national long-term scenario needs to be worked out and agreed to. After negotiating the freeze and subsequent reductions, the earlier anti-weapons in space treaties should be jointly ammended. Furthermore, the BMD component of such a plan should be undertaken, at the outset, as a joint r-and-d and deployment effort under the auspices of the indicated collective security treaties. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 1984 01:44-EDT From: Herb Lin <LIN @ MIT-MC> Subject: interesting observation concerning strategic defense initiative and CTB To: ARMS-D @ MIT-MC cc: LIN @ MIT-MC I find it quite curious that folks at the Livermore Labs assert on one hand that good BMD is indeed possible in the absence of full-scale, realistic testing, and on the other hand that a comprehensive test ban (against testing of nuclear weapons) would be disastrous for US security, since we would eventually not know that our nuclear weapons were reliable in the absence of proof testing. Question: if LLL people can't guarantee the continued performance of a technology that has been around - and tested - for 40 years, how in heaven's name can they claim to have confidence in any BMD system that will jump from quiescent to fully active in seconds and that will never be tested fully even once until an actual attack comes? comments (especially from LLL people)? ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 1984 0707-PDT From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: Politics and missile defense technology To: armsd@MIT-MC, poli-sci@RUTGERS In a recent Arms-D (Vol 2, Issue 35) Josh made the following comment about a msg from Severo Ornestein to Lowell Wood about strategic defense: However the problem [that an improperly applied technological solution to the ballistic missile defense problem is useless] is not confined to the American defense capabilities or political leadership. It is one which is inevitable given human nature and a sufficiently advanced level of technology. From a historical perspective, a technological solution may be possible: such things, technological solutions to major problems, which drastically changed the way of life of most the population, have happened several times. To expect a political solution is laughable. It is as foolish to expect the laws of political interaction to change, reversing the experience of millenia, as it would be to hope that the laws of physics will suddenly change to make fission impossible. The kind of power-seeking individuals who make governments and wars inevitable, are (I fear) a permanant part of the human condition. The knowlege making possible weapons of mass destruction is so far advanced that it could not be destroyed without an effect as bad as the war you are trying to prevent. Head for the hills. Unfortunately, a political solution (perhaps better described as a psycho-social solution) is manadatory. It appears ever more clearly that the US and the USSR have 'cooperated' in the construction of a doomsday machine which will, if ever used, utterly destroy both societies, most of their populations, and possibly our entire species. There are no hills to head for; 'nuclear winter' and similar world-wide effects make futile any attempt to find a safe place on the surface of the planet. The reasons for this seem clear. Science and technology have been moving mankind up several exponential curves of capability and power. The up-side potentials can be miraculous and wonderful - use of computer science to enhance human intelligence and make each of us a worldnet-connected member of the global village; exploitation of extra-terrestrial resources to solve age-old shortages of energy and materials; pick your own dream and it looks like the technology is at hand to make it real. But then there is the down side. As pointed out by hosts of people from Einstein to Schell and Dyson, nuclear weapons technology threatens our survival in every sense of the word. I find arguments for technological fixes to the problem unpersuasive; an effective defensive technology can be used by an aggressor as a 'shield' to complement the use of an ICBM first-strike 'sword' by blunting the 2nd strike of the first-strike victim. The problem is of course that technology is neutral. It can as easily be turned to evil as to good. Even assuming that ballistic defense systems could or would be a force for stability in the world, I am personally doubtful that the six-orders-of-magnitude increase in destructive power caused by the introduction of nuclear weapons can be matched any time soon by an equivalent increase in the capability of defensive technology. It is time for the human race to grow up. Either we clean up our act, or prepare for more radiation-resistant species like cockroaches to take over. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 84 23:59:11 EDT From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Subject: Technological vs Political Solutions To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA, poli-sci@RUTGERS.ARPA From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: Politics and missile defense technology [Quoting me:] However the problem [that an improperly applied technological solution to the ballistic missile defense problem is useless] ... Well, I thought I was referring to the "problem" of nuclear war. This is, admittedly, a quibble... Unfortunately, a political solution... is manadatory. ... It is time for the human race to grow up. If a political solution is impossible, it avails little to reiterate that it is "mandatory". It is quite obvious from Caulkins' (and Ornstein's) writings that he hopes for some significant, thoroughgoing sea change to occur in the political psychology of the human race in the next few years. This is the stuff of fairy tales. The rest of Caulkins' letter is devoted to persuading me that this change is necessary, crucial, important, urgent, etc, etc. I had already assumed that. He spends no time exploring the issue of the required fundamental turnaround in the makeup of the human mind. Of course since I believe that the prospect of such a storybook ending is extremely remote, I won't explore it either. What I will do is talk about the "real" technological solution. My basic thesis is that there is in general a balance between the destructive capability of which technology is capable at a given level of scientific knowlege, and the other capabilities at that level which tend to offset the destructive. [In Caulkins' terms, the "upside" and the "downside" have tended to balance, with an edge to the "upside" as the general quality of life has improved.] However, in the past half-century, the destructive capabilities would seem to have outrun the others to some extent. It has been possible since at least the time of Genghis Khan for a force under the command of one man to destroy a village utterly (and it was done many times). It is military technology that has first reached the level of the "global village" in this sense--indeed in all the other senses the technology isn't quite there. Technology may be "neutral" in some abstract sense; actually I think it is closer to the truth to say that technological knowlege is neutral. However, once you have built a particular machine, its use is fairly limited. --Once you have developed a particular kind of machine, you have to redevelop to use the same technological knowlege for other things. You cannot use an automobile engine in a weed trimmer without drastic modifications. Thus we are confronted with the problem that destructive technology is advanced over whatever other technology would serve to ameliorate it. The obvious reason, obvious to me at least, is that nuclear technology has been under government control--everywhere in the world--since its inception. Nuclear technology is basically a source of cheap energy. [Please note that most of the nasty effects of a nuclear war could be achieved by WWII style incendiary bombing, including enough smoke to satisfy Sagan's wildest fantasy. However, it would be prohibitively expensive.] Were nuclear technology in the non-military realm as advanced as in the military, I believe that the prospect of nuclear war, while still daunting, would not be as apocalyptic as it now seems to be. The following is a set of guesses as to what possibilities there might be if development of nuclear tech. were more balanced. It surely doesn't cover all the bases and probably contains some red herrings. -- Hills (in the sense of "head for"). Nerva and/or Orion style rocketry would make space colonies feasible, orbital, lunar, and other, long before the "Cecil B DeMille" methods the gov't is currently using. -- Cheap energy. Unmonopolized power reactors would make possible a considerable dispersion of the population from those so-tempting (target) cities. If you are worried about global effects, undersea habitations would be considerably more resistant to side effects (including NW). The technology doesn't *have* to be nuclear, but it would help. -- A better popular understanding and ability to handle radiation hazards. To illustrate by an extreme example, if each house had its own reactor, it would probably also contain geiger counters and iso-suits. One assumes that radiation containment and nullification technology would be given a big stimulus as well. So my technological solution is simple: rebalance technology by developing the commercial uses of the atom. Or any other technology, preferably all. Most importantly we cannot allow the government to have any significant technological lead over the market, since that's what caused the problem in the first place. In my mind, the imperative is to spread out. Four hundred years ago, it took years to sail around the world. It was inconceivable that a single national force might wipe out all humanity. For humanity to be as safe again, we must again occupy an area that it takes years to cross. --JoSH ------- ------------------------------ [End of ARMS-D Digest]