[fa.arms-d] Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #125

C70:arms-d (06/20/82)

>From HGA@MIT-MC Sat Jun 19 21:27:30 1982

Arms-Discussion Digest                            Volume 0 : Issue 125

Today's Topics:
                         AFSC and subversion
            Pacifists not informed about military options?
                            Risking death
                            Stellar fusion
                         Miscellaneous points
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Date: 19 Jun 1982 07:42:08-PDT
From: decvax!minow at Berkeley
Subject:  AFSC and subversion

At the demonstration last week, AFSC showed that they can run a bus
system.  This, to my mind, suggests that they are a revolutionary
organization, and a threat to our existing institutions (such as
Boston's MBTA).  But, being able to organize an effective "government"
and being against nuclear war hardly qualify them for the exalted
status of "Soviet Front."

In fact, if you listen to Russian propoganda, you can easily come to
the conclusion that the USSR is a Quaker front.

Martin Minow
decvax!minow @ Berkeley

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Date: Saturday, 19 June 1982  10:56-EDT
From: Jon Webb <Webb at Cmu-20c>
Subject: Pacifists not informed about military options?

     A clear example of a country which has been occupied for
     centuries and which has only rarely been able to expel the
     occupying force is Poland.  Intervention by a third country has
     usually been the explanation of the expulsion those few times it
     has occurred.  The Polish people have always been resistant to
     the occupations.

Hmmm...  I think you are confusing politics with geography.  Poland
has been occupied, it is true, but it is necessarily difficult to
defend Poland from invaders, simply because of its location.  If you
want to claim the analogy applies to the U.S., you'll have to take
into account its geography, which makes it practically impossible to
invade: a huge country separated by oceans from any militarily
significant nation.  I think the U.S. could be defended by non-violent
methods (e.g., by absorption of the invading force into the general
population).  At the same time, Poland probably could not be defended
by any means, except really extreme military methods that would sap
the country's strength before long.  Maybe Switzerland is a good
example of what you want; the country is defensible, because of the
mountains, but at the same time defense is necessary, because of the
presence of powerful neighbors.  I think the best analogy for the U.S.
is China, which has existed more or less intact for thousands of
years, occasionally absorbing foreign invasions, sometimes defending
against them.

Jon

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Date: 19 June 1982 14:29-EDT
From: Oded Anoaf Feingold <OAF at MIT-MC>
Subject:  Pacifists not informed about military options?

Fooey yet more - until recent times the Chinese simply absorbed their
conquerors.  The Poland example is bad because Poland has no natural
barriers to invasion and is small enough that Germany (once upon a
time) and Russia (including today) is able to overcome resistance at
acceptable cost.  You want a counterexample - Vietnam.  I seriously
doubt there is any country interested in or capable of swallowing the
US, nukes or no.

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Date: 19 June 1982 14:42-EDT
From: Gene Salamin <ES at MIT-MC>
Subject: Risking death

     [From CAULKINS]

     One of my big problems with nuclear war is that a very small
     group imposes death, disease, malnutrition, etc. on a much larger
     group that never had any choice at all.

The typical Soviet slave prefers to toil for his masters rather than
risk his life even for his own freedom. From the great physicist
Sakharov, who educated a bunch of thugs how to build the hydrogen
bomb, to the ignorant peasant whose taxes finance the Communist war
machine, there are few Soviets who can justifiably claim to be
innocent bystanders when the Bomb is dropped on them.

And what about the innocent Americans and Western Europeans?  Let's
not mention the loans to the Communists so they can buy the food their
economy can't grow and to build the industries that somehow cannot be
assembled by the "will of the people".  And then let's not mention the
tax subsidized loan guarantees so the Western bankers won't ever have
to face the reality of default.  And also let's not talk about the
beautiful people from Silicon Valley who happily sell integrated
circuit technology to those who will return the favor by using those
integrated circuits to guide missiles back to them.  Nor shall we
besmirch the halls of Stanford University, duty bound, according to
its president Donald Kennedy, to provide unrestricted access by Soviet
agents to their robotics technology.

     Well, maybe CAULKINS is right after all.  There still are large
groups of people somewhere in the world who aren't actively working
for their own death by nuclear war.

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Date: 19 June 1982 15:22-EDT
From: Gene Salamin <ES at MIT-MC>
Subject: Stellar fusion

     Fusion reactions in stars proceed at a much slower rate than the
fusion in a hydrogen bomb.  That is why stars last for millions to
billions of years.  The fusion of hydrogen nuclei (protons) into
helium-4 requires the conversion of protons into neutrons via beta
decay, and this is slow.  Furthermore, stellar temperatures (20
million degrees at the center of the sun) are much lower than the
temperature of a nuclear explosion (around 1 billion degrees).

     The most energetically stable nucleus is iron-56.  Heavier nuclei
can be produced in supernova explosions because the high density of
baryons shifts the equilibrium towards a more neutron rich mixture.
The stellar core remaining after a supernova is a neutron star, whose
interior is one huge nucleus.

     I don't quite understand how all this astrophysics got to be a
discussion topic on ARMS-D.  Imitating stellar fusion is more germane
to the ENERGY mailing list.

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Date: 19 Jun 1982 18:52:24-PDT
From: CSVAX.upstill at Berkeley
Subject: Miscellaneous points

   Just a few comments on a recent APPLE message.

	From: James A. Cox <APPLE at MIT-MC>
	Subject:  Risking death

		From CAULKINS at USC-ECL:

		.... One of my big problems with nuclear war is that a
		very small group imposes death, disease, malnutrition,
		etc. on a much larger group that never had any choice
		at all.

	Apparently, you are not talking about this country but about
	the Soviet Union.  Do you forget that the American people
	elected, if not all the members of your "small group," at
	least the ones with the real power?

  I wonder, APPLE, did you mean to say that, in the event of a nuclear
conflict, you will believe yourself to have voted for it?  If not,
then your point is ill-taken.  If so, then I have no doubt that you
are in a minority.  Voting is such a low-bandwidth medium that it is
impossible to sustain the notion that the majority of people have much
say in the matter.

	Please let us try to remember that no one wants nuclear war.
	With your talk of a small group "imposing" death, et cetera,
	upon the population, you ignore that fact.  Once we agree on
	the necessity for risking death to preserve our freedoms (and
	we apparently do agree), we can then argue whether this
	strategy or that one guarantees those freedoms best while
	minimizing the danger of war.

Let us not forget that everyone knows that no-one wants nuclear war,
any more than anyone prefers servitude to freedom.  The question is
not whether a person is willing to claim devotion to an ideal.  The
question is, how important is it to him/her?  Is freedom from
radiation-induced cancer more valuable than freedom of speech?  These
are serious questions.  But that is not what I am trying to say when I
march in a demonstration.  If you thump a military skeptic, you will
find somewhere inside the conviction that, to our leadership, the
non-occurence of war is worth risking to maintain the freedom of
American business to operate unimpeded overseas, to maintain the
"leadership status" of the United States, and so on.  You may believe
that the president prefers non-war to war.  But what steps, what
effort is he willing to undergo to get there?  I don't see a man
fervently committed to peace and bound by the circumstances of an
imperfect world.  I see a man who has many things he wants to
accomplish, some of which are of indifferent importance to me.  Among
the former is peace, if not to costly in terms of other things.

The second betrayal of values a typical military sceptic might point
out is in the operation of the military itself.  I don't expect to
prove this assertion to anyone, but when I look at the military and
its doings, I don't see a dedicated machine striving its best to
secure freedom, I see a deluded, self-satisfied giant thrashing about
trying to do several things at once, among them: secure the peace,
satisfy the industrial friends of the administration, play politics
both intra- and extra-fraternally.  I object to this because I care
about exactly one thing from the military: that it make itself
redundant.  I am indeed sceptical about this coming to pass.

	It is silly to assert than anyone is going to "impose" nuclear
	war on anyone else.

Under one definition of "anyone" i.e. the local government in charge,
this may be silly.  After all, war is always the other guys' fault.
But if the definition of "anyone" includes the governments of the
warring powers acting in unconscious, implicit collusion to drive each
other toward war, it becomes more plausible.

Steve

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End of Arms-D Digest
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