C70:arms-d (07/28/82)
>From HGA@MIT-MC Wed Jul 28 01:11:17 1982
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 149
Today's Topics:
Effects of Nuclear War
The Concept of a Palestinian state
Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #148 luosy speling
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Date: 27 July 1982 04:27-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Effects of Nuclear War / claimed refutation of Caldicott
The first point is nonsense. If you launch your missiles so that they
all strike their targets simultaneously, there will be no problem with
debris from Northern targets impacting still-in-flight missiles headed
for Southern targets. Since explosions everywhere at the same time
(except for one EMP strike at the earliest possible moment) is optimum
for surprize and shock value, there's not much reason for using the
scenerio that author is trying to claim will have the problem, thus
it's a straw man in my opinion. (Of course if that author has top
secret military info about what schedule the USSR or the USA actually
will use in case of war, I'll stand corrected; does he?)
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Date: 27 July 1982 05:15-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Effects of Nuclear War
Yes indeed, weapons capable of killing 56 billion people won't
actually kill that number because there aren't that many around to
kill. But you fail to say how many will actualy be killed from direct
extrapolation. The simplest method is to assume the law of diminishing
returns follows simple independent probability. Thus a bomb capable by
itself of killing .01% of the population will leave 99.99% of the
population alive. The next bomb will kill .01% of the survivors of the
first bomb, leaving 99.99% of the initial survivors, i.e. (99.99)^2 %
of the original population. With n bombs, you have (99.99)^n alive,
i.e. 1-(99.99)^n killed. For small values of n, this is approximately
linear, and this means (work it out mathematically) that you get
essentially the same result no matter how small you quantize the bomb
size providing you quantize it much smaller than 100% kill (thus 1% or
.1% or .01% etc. are all close enough). The simplest is to take the
infitesimal. Then linear-extrapolation overkill of k (k=1 means enough
to kill everyone by linear extrapolation, k=14 is the figure
extrapolated from Hiroshima assuming 4 billion people and 10 gigatons)
yields a true overkill of
LIMIT(1-(1-K/N)^N) = 1-exp(-k)
n->inf
Putting in k=14 we get a true overkill of .999999166, i.e. a survival
rate of .00000083, i.e. out of 4 billion living now only 3320 people
in the world will be alive right after the bombs drop, and those 3k
people scattered randomly around the world will have to survive all
the other hazards that come3k
people scattered randomly around the world will have to survive all
the other hazards that come later (UV, no food, no medical services,
loneliness, chemical&biological war, etc.).
I'm not saying it'll be that bad, because the bombs are targeted for
the northern hemisphere, and there are more than 3320 people living in
Australia. But direct extrapolation of overkill, taking into account
diminishing returns, and assuming totally random targeting on
population centers, gives that figure.
I don't count on being one of those lucky 3k initial survivors.
----
There's a children's joke about if a plane flying from Chicago to LA
crashes right on the corner between Arizona/NM/Utah/Colorado, where do
they bury the survivors. In the case of nuclear war, the "survivors",
those who don't get killed immediately, will die soon enough, but
won't be buried. Who'll be there to bury them?
----
Those who follow this digest have seen my diminising-return formula
before, but since DIETZ criticized the linear extrapolation without
offering anything to replace it, and since DIETZ's message gave a
particular figure for overkill, I decided to repeat my formula with a
better explanation from the original I gave.
P.s. I think the population is now 4.5 E9. that gives the linear
overkill as k = 56/4.5 = 12.44, so true overkill is .999996044, so
survival is .0000039, so number of survivors is 17803. I still don't
think I'll be one of them, do you?
------------------------------
Date: 27 July 1982 05:24-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Effects of Nuclear War
"Modern cities have little to burn" is a big big lie!!
It's amazing how many people die in a simple hotel fire because the
furnishings inside the steel&concrete&glass building are made of
plastic and other combustable materials. There's much much that can
burn in a modern city, steel&concrete&glass buildings notwithstanding.
With the concrete and glass shattered by the initial shock wave,
there'd be no firewalls to impede spread of fire and all the sprinkler
systems would be inoperative.
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jul 82 13:50:49 EDT (Mon)
From: Steve Bellovin <smb.unc@UDel-Relay>
Subject: demilitarized Palestinian state
Well, we can all see how effective the Japanese constitutional
guarantee is -- it seems to serve mostly as a political excuse when
the U.S. asks them to spend more on defense than they're already
doing.
As for your proposal itself, I don't think anyone would buy it (which
may, of course, mean that it's fair). Israel would reject it because
of the danger of terrorism, and because it would be difficult to
verify and/or enforce -- they don't have any spy satellites, and the
rest of the world, including the U.S., has never accepted Israel's
pre-emptive strikes as legitimate self-defense. The Palestinians will
not accept accept being defenseless because they won't trust Israel,
nor will they trust Jordan, Syria, or Iraq. (I know Sria and Iraq
don't border the West Bank directly, but they're not that far away.)
There have been far too many wars in the area among former allies; I
assume that the readers of this list don't need a compendium.
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Date: 27 Jul 1982 0931-PDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN at WASHINGTON>
Subject: Palestinian state on the West Bank
[From: Zigurd R. Mednieks <ZRM at MIT-AI>]
As is increasingly apperant, the majority of Palestineans are
moderates that... would probably be more than content with a
Gaza/West Bank state, even with lots of strings attached, like no
heavy arms. But what about the fanatics who will continue to mount
terrorist attacks against Israel?
I agree that nothing can be done to prevent terrorist activities with
anti-air missiles, mortars, etc. But consider; this is happening
already anyway. However, under current circumstances, terrorist
actions seem to generate support among moderate Palestinians -
terrorist action ==> Israeli retaliation ==> more Palestinians
converted to the radical cause, and the cycle repeats. It seems to me
that the establishment of a disarmed state would cut out the most of
the "moral imperative" (from the Palestinian point of view) for
terrorist action.
------------------------------
Date: 27 Jul 1982 0940-PDT
From: Herb Lin <LIN at WASHINGTON>
Subject: Re: demilitarized Palestinian state
[From: Steve Bellovin <smb.unc@UDel-Relay>]
As for your proposal itself, I don't think anyone would buy it.
Israel would reject it because of the danger of terrorism, and
because it would be difficult to verify and/or enforce -- they
don't have any spy satellites, and the rest of the world,
including the U.S., has never accepted Israel's pre-emptive
strikes as legitimate self-defense. The Palestinians will not
accept accept being defenseless because they won't trust Israel,
nor will they trust Jordan, Syria, or Iraq.
My proposal has flaws in it; nevertheless, isn't it better than the
current status quo? Israel faces terrorism NOW; what would be
different? The U.S. could sell them spy satellites, and a treaty or a
national charter could specifically indicate Israel's right to
intervene. Militarily, they could be no threat to other Arab
countries. Indeed, would Israel stand idly by if Jordan attacked the
Palestinian state on the West Bank? I suspect they would attempt to
defend the Palestinian state!
------------------------------
Date: 27 July 1982 18:36-EDT
From: Zigurd R. Mednieks <ZRM at MIT-MC>
Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #148 luosy speling
Mea culpa! I shall practice typing "e"s followed by "a"s long into the
nig