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From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: anti-nuke questions
Message-ID: <2768@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Nov-83 14:27:10 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2768
Posted: Sat Nov 19 14:27:10 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Nov-83 15:27:27 EST
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 78

A reply to the questions from Tom Craver, from someone who doesn't pretend
to be an expert on disarmament, and would welcome any corrections...

>I would like to know why the possibility of nuclear war has suddenly
>become such a "hot" issue.  After all, we've managed to avoid one for
>about 40 years now.  The only recent change that I can see is that NATO
>and the USSR are now about at parity in nuclear forces.  

   I can think of at least two new things: recent talk of limited and
survivable nuclear war (that Reagan has since dropped) and deployment or
development of significant new US weapons (cruise, Pershing, MX),
particularly as the Pershing drastically reduces the time available for
evaluating a strike (from around 20 min to 6).  Both make war, either
purposeful or accidental, more likely.

>...I cannot understand the "freeze" point of view.  If achieving parity 
>is so scary, why attempt to freeze at that stage?  Is the ability to 
>destroy the world 1 more time over, much more scary?

  My understanding of the freeze is that it would be a first step to a
substantial reduction in arms, to the point of simple mutual assured
destruction, or lower.  The freeze would mark a turning point, in that no
further growth would be allowed, and thus would be important symbolically.

>If our superiority over Russia prevented a nuclear war all these years, 
>why should we think that parity or inferiority will work better?  If that 
>disparity is not what prevented the war, what was?  If it was simply that 
>neither side would *really* engage in a nuclear war, why do anti-nuke'rs
>think they would they be more likely to do so now? 

  Mutual Assured Destruction was probably the reason for the lack of nuclear
war in the past decades.  As for questions of superiority or inferiority, I
defy anyone to come up with a metric that makes sense in even military terms
-- i.e. a metric that guarantees some sort of victory for the superior force.
That is, a metric applied to the current vast over-stocking of weapons.
  Talk of a limited war on the part of the US made people think that they
were really contemplating use of nuclear weapons for battlefield and
local-area objectives.  All the new weapons make accidental war more likely,
and consume significant amounts of money in a time of economic hardship.
In particular, they contribute to the US deficit which is hurting most
Western economies by keeping interest rates high, and endangering the world
economic system by making it more likely that countries like Brazil will
be forced into default by those same interest rates.

>It seems to me that it is the existance of nuclear arms that has prevented 
>another World War, between NATO and the USSR. Suppose that we managed nuclear 
>disarmament - how would this war be prevented?  And once such a war got 
>started, what would prevent both sides from re-building nukes and throwing
>them as fast as they built them?  (Note: this is not an endorsement of the
>MAD philosophy.)

  Personally, I believe that total nuclear disarmament will have to wait until
institutions have been created to replace war as a means of settling disputes
between nations.  This does not mean that disarmament to the point required
by the mutual assured destruction (MAD) doctrine cannot proceed.  And why not
endorse MAD?  Has it been discredited?

>It also seems to me that "building down" would leave us in a similar 
>condition to where we were 30 or so years ago, except that we'd be
>at parity with the USSR.  If we no longer have enough bombs to drive 
>the human race to extinction, a nuclear war becomes an "acceptable risk".
>Do you want Russia to have that perception?  Or even us?

  I sure don't.  I favour maintenance of a MAD force, controlled by highly
reliable control systems.  Put the money into ultra-reliable software
technology.  There'll even be spinoff benefits for life-critical software
(nuclear reactor control, air traffic control, etc.).


--------
While I'm here, 3 cheers for Mike Kelly's stepped unilateral disarmament.
Not only will it reduce the chance of accidental war, it will indeed show
the world that the West is enlightened (might make us some friends of the
countries yet to choose which camp they want to be in), and will save money
to boot.

  peter rowley, U. Toronto
  utcsrgv!peterr