Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucbvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!daemon From: daemon@ucbvax.UUCP Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Subject: Message-ID: <1722@ucbvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-Aug-84 00:20:31 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.1722 Posted: Fri Aug 24 00:20:31 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Aug-84 03:26:01 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.UUCP Organization: U.C. Berkeley Lines: 287 From FFM@MIT-MC Thu Aug 23 21:19:25 1984 Date: 23-Aug-84 20:32:45 From: Moderator Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V2 #54 To: ARMS-D-DIST@MIT-MC Reply-To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 2 : Issue 54 Today's Topics: Nuclear Winter & Crazy States[3 msgs], Russian Roulette, Re: Nuclear Winter Uncertainties, Nuclear winter + safety ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 20 Aug 84 03:44:15-EDT From: Wayne McGuire Subject: Re: Nuclear Winter & Crazy States To: SASW@MIT-MC cc: Arms-d%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Prog-d%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "Steven A. Swernofsky " of Mon 20 Aug 84 01:05:00-EDT Steven A. Swernofsky: "Really now. I would have thought that even such third-rate powers as the U.K., France, or West Germany would be more than a match for Israel. And Israel's performance in 1973 hardly befits ''the world's fourth greatest military power,'' unless of course Egypt is the world's 5th-6th greatest. (You never know.) I suppose the Israeli Navy is the world's fourth greatest also?" It may seem intuitively odd to say that in a one-to-one bash Israel could best the U.K, France, or the FRG, but such is the case according to the majority of leading military authorities in the world. Israel itself has expressed pride in this fact. When you add up all the numbers, Israel is a more powerful fighting force than the nations you mentioned. In the 1973 war Israel was caught by surprise in simultaneous attacks by Egypt and Syria. The near debacle for Israel in that war was a fault of poor intelligence, not insufficient military strength. As soon as Israel regained its balance, you will recall, it was in a position of delivering a crushing blow to the Syrians and Egyptians. Only forceful intervention by Henry Kissinger prevented Egypt and Syria from suffering a humiliating defeat. Do you also recall, for instance, the number the Israeli Air Force did on the Syrian Air Force during the Lebanon War? Israel in some areas is reputed to possess more advanced military technology than the United States, thanks to customizations performed by Israelis on U.S. equipment. I've seen the figures on relative Israeli military strength a number of times, but don't have them at my fingertips. Someone on the list may have the references at hand; if not, I'll look them up. -- Wayne -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Aug 84 09:38:44 PDT From: Richard Foy To: ARMS-D@MIT-MC Subject: Russian Roulette I find Dr. Stephen Schneider"s statements about our lack of knowledge of the threshold of nuclear being like playing Russian Roulette without knowing if there is one or five bullets in the gun, fascinating. However when he goes on to recommend that we study the issue, it seems to me that he does not realize that we are already playing the Russian game in spite of our lack of knowledge. I think that one is very foolish to play Russian Roulette without regard to the number of bullets in the gun. In fact many gun safety experts would reccommend not evan playing with an unloaded gun. ------------------------------ Received: FROM HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA BY CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA WITH dial; 21 AUG 1984 08:55:13 EDT Date: Tue, 21 Aug 84 05:54 MST From: Jong@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Re: Nuclear Winter Uncertainties Message-ID: <840821125405.429994@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> Given the military's desire for a sure thing, the inevitable uncertainties concerning "nuclear winter" may mean that no change in nuclear strategies will occur. Recall that the official estimates of the effectiveness of U.S. nuclear forces take into account only those killed by the prompt effects of blast and heat. Estimates do not include the effects of radiation poisoning, starvation, genetic effects, etc. That's because the military mind is taking no chances. Now consider the possibility of a nuclear winter. What confidence level is there that it will actually happen at, say, 1000 megatons? Certainly not 100 percent. If you were a military planner, how would you take nuclear winter into account? Would you really feel secure in burning 1000 weapons in the middle of a national forest and announcing that we have created a doomsday weapon that prevents nuclear war? Would the Russians believe it? On the other hand, if you did believe in the validity of nuclear winter (as a military planner), what would the "safe" threshold be for limited exchanges? If the theoretical threshold were 1000 megatons, could you plan a 999-megaton attack? A 900-megaton attack? Where is the safe limit? I think the end result, suicidal as it may be, is that the Pentagon could ignore the nuclear winter in its plans, due to the uncertainties. Unless the theory can be proven, those responsible for the safety of our country won't take a chance on it's being wrong. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 1984 2054-PDT From: CAULKINS@USC-ECL Subject: Nuclear winter + safety To: armsd at MIT-MC A nuclear winter would be far more threatening to the safety of our country and the USSR than any military action the Russians (or we) might take short of it. Evidently some government policy makers are beginning to see the vast change this is likely to force on our nuclear use policies. There is now talk of new and extended nuclear winter studies. ------------------------------ Received: from MIT-MC by MIT-OZ via Chaosnet; 21 Aug 84 15:13-EDT Date: 21 August 1984 15:13-EDT From: Herb Lin Subject: Nuclear Winter & Crazy States To: MDC.WAYNE @ MIT-OZ cc: Arms-d @ MIT-OZ, Lin @ MIT-OZ, Oaf @ MIT-OZ, Prog-d @ MIT-OZ In-reply-to: Msg of Mon 20 Aug 84 01:43:07-EDT from Wayne McGuire From: Wayne McGuire Herb Lin demolished the notion that exploding 100 megatons of nuclear devices in one's backyard would trigger the nuclear winter. I don't think that fact closes the case on the subject. Can we safely assume that during the next decade that, other than the U.S. and USSR, a number of the most powerful nations in the world that seem to qualify for potential crazy statehood won't be able to find ways to deliver 1000 100 KT weapons or more outside their borders? One hears much these days, for instance, about briefcase nuclear devices which could be planted with some ease in any major city in the world. Perhaps the briefcase bomb is just the stuff of suspense fiction, but I have seen a number of articles in the Times and elsewhere which suggest it is a feasible technology. Briefcase sized bombs aren't sci-fi; the 335 KT warhead of the MM III weighs under 500 lbs. But there are two major objections I have to your "last-ditch defense" scenario. 1. The probability of detection goes up exponentially with each bomb. One bomb is easy to get in undetected. One thousand bombs are not. 2. The technology for hydrogen bombs is *much* more difficult to acchieve tha the technology for atomic bombs. Fission warheads have a natural scale (tens of kilotons); it takes very sophisticated engineering to develop a 100 KT atomic bomb. Considering the effort that it apparently takes for countries to acquire enough fissionable material for just one bomb, the prospect of not 1000 100 KT weapons, but 10,000 10 KT weapons, is even more difficult to believe. All this is not to say that I am not concerned about crazy thrid-world nations; I am. But the point is that "crazy nations" do not pose a significant nuclear winter threat when you compare it to the threat posed by the US/USSR. Undesirable though it may be, we will survive small-scale nuclear war caused by some crazy nation. We won't survive large-scale nuclear war, and for that only the super-powers have the necessary hardware. Moral: concentrate on the biggest problem first, because if that one isn't solved, the little ones don't matter. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 1984 18:52 EDT (Wed) Message-ID: From: Wayne McGuire To: Herb Lin Cc: Arms-d%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Lin%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, mdc.wayne%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Oaf%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Prog-d%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Nuclear Winter & Crazy States In-reply-to: Msg of 21 Aug 1984 15:13-EDT from Herb Lin Date: Tuesday, 21 August 1984 15:13-EDT From: Herb Lin To: MDC.WAYNE cc: Arms-d, Lin, Oaf, Prog-d Re: Nuclear Winter & Crazy States Briefcase sized bombs aren't sci-fi; the 335 KT warhead of the MM III weighs under 500 lbs. But there are two major objections I have to your "last-ditch defense" scenario. 1. The probability of detection goes up exponentially with each bomb. One bomb is easy to get in undetected. One thousand bombs are not. 2. The technology for hydrogen bombs is *much* more difficult to acchieve tha the technology for atomic bombs. Fission warheads have a natural scale (tens of kilotons); it takes very sophisticated engineering to develop a 100 KT atomic bomb. Considering the effort that it apparently takes for countries to acquire enough fissionable material for just one bomb, the prospect of not 1000 100 KT weapons, but 10,000 10 KT weapons, is even more difficult to believe. Actually, if we unkludge the nuclear winter and crazy state scenarios, one realizes that the credible threat by a small crazy state "merely" to take out, say, New York, Washington, and Boston, or Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev by a handful of briefcase nuclear devices would provide that state with tremendous leverage. A crazy state wouldn't need the capability to induce nuclear winter in order to make the U.S. or USSR pay polite attention to its demands. All this is not to say that I am not concerned about crazy thrid-world nations; I am. But the point is that "crazy nations" do not pose a significant nuclear winter threat when you compare it to the threat posed by the US/USSR. Undesirable though it may be, we will survive small-scale nuclear war caused by some crazy nation. We won't survive large-scale nuclear war, and for that only the super-powers have the necessary hardware. Moral: concentrate on the biggest problem first, because if that one isn't solved, the little ones don't matter. Well, maybe. I thought, however, that the consensus of opinion among strategic experts was that a nuclear war between the U.S. and USSR was highly unlikely. The now defunct magazine _Next_ carried a few years ago the results of a Delphi-like survey of strategic experts which, If I correctly recall, argued that the likeliest cause of a nuclear war in the remainder of this century would be the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the least likely cause a confrontation between the U.S. and USSR. The U.S. and USSR are too fundamentally rational and secure to commit suicide (or "to suicide" the earth) in the pursuit of an abstract ideological goal or an esoteric belief system. The signs of apocalyptic fanaticism which are surfacing in a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism and messianic Zionism leave one more doubtful about how far certain Middle Eastern nations might go in the name of their respective Gods. One also has to consider that third world crazy states could trigger the nuclear winter by dragging the U.S. and USSR into an unwanted confrontation which could escalate into a nuclear exchange. Wasn't, in fact, the U.S. put on a full nuclear alert during the 1973 Yom Kippur War? Chomsky in _The Fateful Triangle_ (pp. 446-447) offers other evidence and speculation to suggest that a single crazy or desperate nation could set into motion a full-scale nuclear war: "Nuclear threats are also not to be dismissed. I referred earlier to a recent study of Israel's nuclear strategies and capacities by a group of Israeli and American specialists: Amos Perlmutter (Professor of Political Science at American University in Washington, military historian and strategic analyst, formerly a member of the Israeli delegation to the UN and the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission), Michael Handel (military historian at the Harvard Center for International Affairs, formerly of the Hebrew University), and Uri Bar-Joseph (formerly in the Israeli air force, involved with training and tactical planning). As noted earlier, they allege that Israel threatened to use nuclear weapons, and in fact prepared to do so, in the early stages of the October 1973 war, in order to to compel the U.S. to provide 'a massive shipment of conventional weapons' to Israel. Again, the threat was directed at the United States: 'The Israeli signals would make it clear to the decision-makers in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department that any more delays might bring catastrophe to the Middle East.' ".... It may also be surmised that nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach southern Russia are not really intended to deter the USSR, but rather to put U.S. planners on notice, once again, that pressures on Israel to accede to a political settlement may lead to a violent reaction that will bring the USSR into the Middle East, setting it in inevitable confrontation with the United States, with a high probability of global nuclear war." ------------------------------ [End of ARMS-D Digest]