arms-d (03/29/83)
>From The-Moderator@MIT-MC Tue Mar 29 07:17:10 1983 Received: by UCBVAX.ARPA (3.332/3.19) id AA05332; 29 Mar 83 07:20:08 PST (Tue) Sender: FFM@MIT-MC To: ARMS-D-DIST@MIT-MC Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V1 #10 Reply-To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 1 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: "The human mind is senior ... ", High Frontier and RWR, Give Reagan's High-Tech Defense Idea A Chance, MIRV destabilizes, An outbreak of sanity in the government, Which game to play: Pac Man or Negotiation?, 'Controlled' nuclear war |--------------------------------------------------------------------- Administrivia: ARMS-D has been under new management for several weeks now; the moderatorship is being shared between Dave Caulkins, Steve Kudlak, and John Larson. The current moderator is Dave Caulkins. Please send any administrative requests to ARMS-D at MIT-MC; requests may be appended to contributions if desired. ------------------------------- REM@MIT-MC 03/26/83 02:17:12 Re: ARMS-D Vol 1 #9 To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC "The human mind is senior to anything it creates so all systems can be countered." What kind of Platonic bullshit is this? Are you saying evolution is impossible because it's impossible for offspring to be smarter or more agile than the parents who created them? What could you possibly mean by "senior" that could make this pseudo-argument have any validity? ------------------------------- Date: 26 March 1983 09:43 EST From: Zigurd R. Mednieks <ZRM @ MIT-MC> Subject: High Frontier and RWR To: ARMS-D @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 03/26/83 09:40:00 from COMSAT I am puzzled. Does he really mean it? Other reforms like New Federalism have fizzled. If he does mean it there are some intermediate goals that were not brought up either in the address or in any followup I've heard or read: o If ICBM sites can be defended, then first strike capability is denied the Russians. We don't have it either because too much of the rest of the country would be laid to waste. o If ships at sea can be defended from IRBMs and cruise missiles then our ability to defend Europe by conventional means is better assured. o If cities can be defended then accidental nuclear war becomes much less likely -- we can then put aside any "launch on warning" posture. The fact that it is unlikely that a 100% effective defense could be built means that nuclear weapons will only be useful to deter the use of nuuclear weapons and will have no useful role in war-fighting. But does he mean it? -Zig ------------------------------- Date: 26 Mar 1983 1046-PST Sender: GEOFF at SRI-CSL Subject: Give Reagan's High-Tech Defense Idea A Chance. From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow Reply-To: Geoff at SRI-CSL To: arms-d at MC Message-ID: <[SRI-CSL]26-Mar-83 10:46:13.GEOFF> a042 0307 26 Mar 83 PM-Reagan-Scientists,530 Give Reagan's High-Tech Defense Idea A Chance: Scientists By PAUL RAEBURN AP Science Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Although many scientists call President Reagan's proposal for using high-tech defenses against nuclear attack a pipe dream, a physicist who helped develop the hydrogen bomb says the idea shouldn't be discounted. Edward Teller said Friday that he strongly supports the president's goal calling for scientists to ''embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive.'' Reagan made the suggestion during a television speech Wednesday. ''It is not what some people shooting from the hip are calling Buck Rogers or Star Wars,'' Teller said, praising Reagan's speech. ''I have found again and again that new ideas are not to be discounted.'' In recent public statements, Teller has hinted that unspecified new defenses based on recent scientific breakthroughs are in development. But other scientists said the technical difficulties in building such a system are immense. ''I think it would be extremely difficult,'' says Hans Bethe of Cornell University, one of the developers of the atom bomb, ''and maybe impossible.'' The development of the nuclear bomb was a comparatively simple task, he said, ''and still it took quite a lot of ingenuity to accomplish it.'' ''I see no prospect of deploying on the ground or in space an effective defense,'' said Sidney Drell, a professor of physics at Stanford University and former defense consultant to the White House and the National Security Council. In a White House briefing following Wednesday's speech, George Keyworth, the president's science adviser, reportedly said weapons based on lasers, particle beams, missiles and microwaves were among the high-technology alternatives Reagan had in mind. Richard Garwin, a former defense consultant now at International Business Machines, is another who says defensive systems are doomed to fail. Defensive systems are more complicated and expensive than offensive weapons, Garwin says, and each defense can be countered with a quicker, less expensive offensive weapon. Garwin and others have objected to laser weapons and devices using powerful beams of charged sub-atomic particles on several grounds. For one thing, the weapons are ineffective against cruise missiles and bombers, which do not rise above the atmosphere like ballistic missiles. Space-based laser and beam weapons cannot penetrate the atmosphere, and therefore could not reach them. Other scientists questioned Friday by The Associated Press agreed with Teller, saying it is not yet known whether an effective defense system can be built. ''The president is saying let's not jump to a conclusion because some scientific guru says it won't work,'' says Harold Agnew, a physicist who, during the Nixon administration, was chairman of the general advisory committee of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Debate on the effectiveness of defensive weapons began with discussion of the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile in 1969 and 1970, but it ended with the signing of the SALT I treaty in 1972. That document prohibited missile defense weapons and their testing in space. ap-ny-03-26 0604EST *************** ------------------------------- REM@MIT-MC 03/27/83 13:54:01 Re: MIRV destabilizes To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC A genius is somebody who sees the obvious and shows it to others. Perhaps contressman Gore (never heard of him before last night, don't even know what state he represents) is a genius. When the MIRV factor for one side multplied by the MIRV factor for the other side is significantly greater than one (like if it's greater than two), the side that attacks first can destroy more enemy silos than it consumes of its own by launching them, thus first-strike scenerios are possible. But if the MIRV factor is small, the side striking first consumes more missiles in its initial strike than it destroys of the enemy, thus the side that strikes first is at a disadvantage in any protracted war that results. The solution therefore to our current fears about first strike scenerios looking good to either side in a crisis, is to get rid of all MIRVs and to put only one missile in each silo. Thus I propose (1) immediate freeze on all new thermonuclear warheads and their delivery systems, especially the MX and other MIRVed missiles, and (2) decommissionning of all existing MIRVs, or at least removing all but one warhead from each. Both proposals are of course with on-site inspection. ------------------------------- Date: Mon Mar 28 01:42:54 1983 From: UCBVAX@Berkeley (John Gilmore) Message-Id: <8303280743.11976@sun.uucp> Mail-From: UUCP host amd70 rcvd at 28 Mar 1983 01:42:52-PST (Monday) Date: 27 Mar 83 23:43:49 PST (Sun) Subject: An outbreak of sanity in the government Headline from NY Times seen today in a vending machine: FBI Says Nuclear Freeze Movement not Russian-Influenced or something to that effect. Mainly, they have declassified part of a secret FBI report which says that there really are a lot of Americans concerned about nuclear war and that we aren't being manipulated by Russian spies. Reality strikes again! ------------------------------- Date: 28 March 1983 1101-PST (Monday) From: crummer at AEROSPACE (Charlie Crummer) Subject: Which game to play: Pac Man or Negotiation? To: arms-d at mit-mc Over the weekend I have gotten a lot of information about the nuclear arms race. I watched a videotape of an interview of George Kennan, a talk show with Jerry Falwell and Dr. Sider, both of the Evangelical Ministers, Paul Newman on the Merv Griffin show, and a three-way debate between Caspar Weinberger, Dr. Sydney Drell, and McGeorge Bundy. I also heard a presentation by John Rubel, undersecretary of defense under Eisenhower and Kennedy. The contrast always seems to be between the administration's knee-jerk "theoreticians" and the unhampered thought of free men who are informed and are utilizing their full intellect to address the problems. There is probably a theorem to the effect that no bureaucracy can be said to have morals or ethics and indeed may even proceed toward insane goals without direction from people functioning outside as total human beings, in touch with their God-given "soul", "intuition", or "common sense". Rather than playing the game made up by the bureaucrats (Reagan too.) we must communicate another game to them. Mc George Bundy had an interesting idea: The President should "take charge" of the Geneva negotiations and actually produce results there. He should also take the initiative by ceasing the "U.S. is weak" rhetoric and create a strong position. He wants to shift focus from this arena, the only one where there is real potential for improving the safety of the country, to the Star Wars scenario. ------------------------------- Date: 28 Mar 1983 2122-PST From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL Subject: 'Controlled' nuclear war To: armsd at MIT-MC Excerpts from a story in the San Francisco Examiner (P1, 27 Mar 83): "U.S. Quietly Working On 'Controlled' Nuclear War" by Frank Greve Knight News Service "The Reagan Administration has stopped talking about a prolonged nuclear war that could be won - but has accelerated the development of weapons to fight such a war. ... The [US] strattegic vision is ... a war that would end not in hours but only when one side lost the ability or will to launch another nuclear strike. It was described as nuclear 'war fighting', according to Gen. Bennie Davis, commander of the Stragtegic Air Command, in 1982 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. To ensure that the United States would prevail, the Reagan Administration has received permission from Congress to pursue: o More survivable airborne command centers for the civilian and military leaders who would prosecute a prolonged nuclear war. o Highly accurate satellite-borne nuclear explosion detectors to assess U.S. and enemy damage all through the conflict. o Computer systems able to digest damage estimates and select the best surviving enemy targets in 'real time' - fast enough to not keep commanders waiting. o Mobile strategic satellite command centers - actually 18-wheel trailer trucks - to take over when vulnerable ground facilities have been destroyed. ... The scenarios for prolonged nuclear war include, according to [defense consultant Thomas] Karas, 'demonstration' attacks to show resolve and to make the other side back down; 'counterforce' attacks against missile silos, bomber fields and missile launching submarines; attempts to 'decapitate' the enemy leadership and wreck enemy command, control, and communications systems; attacks on limited sectors of the enemy's economy such as the petroleum industry or electrical power grid; and, according to Karas, 'repeated, long-term attacks designeed to delay economic and social recovery'. ... ..... the systems are described by Karas in a recent book, 'The New High Ground Strategies and Weapons of Space-Age War'. The strategy is also described in another book, due next fall: 'SIOP, Nuclear War From The Inside', by journalist Peter Pringle and William Arkin, a nuclear warfare specialist at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. ... Today, however, the administration does not use the term 'protracted' nuclear war in public. The 1985-89 page defense guidance package from Weinberger, leaked to the press on March 17, eliminates both the word 'protracted' and the word 'prevail' from discussions about nuclear war. Now the tough words are gone, but the warfighting technology proceeds apace. ------------------------------- [End of Arms-D Digest]
arms-d (03/30/83)
>From LIN@MIT-MC Wed Mar 30 04:24:36 1983
Received: by UCBVAX.ARPA (3.332/3.19)
id AA24357; 30 Mar 83 04:25:34 PST (Wed)
To: THE-MODERATOR@MIT-MC
Cc: ARMS-D-DIST@MIT-MC
In-Reply-To: Msg of 29 Mar 1983 01:06 EST from The-Moderator
i have a complaint... i'm getting arms-d in a bad digest format.....