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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Experts:Are they all Milos?
Message-ID: <114@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Nov-84 15:31:23 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.114
Posted: Sun Nov 18 15:31:23 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Nov-84 07:20:32 EST
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From the one and only Milo Medin:
> I seriously doubt that that the US could survive with 30% intact,
> but the USSR is a different story.  I have seen all kinds of reports
> to substantiate this, and even MacNamara admitted we could only kill
> 25% back in the 60's when we had a lot more megatons than we have now.
> Show me your source for casulty figures.

Your  view is inaccurate.  First of all, immediate destructive power is 
roughly proportional to the number of warhead times the cube root of the
megatonnage.  The immediate casualties in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. have
therefore gone up instead of down.  Second, nuclear war is very, very
unpredictable.  The direct casualties of a full-scale attack would be 
something between 50% and 95% in both countries, with similar figures
for Europe.  The really worrisome effects for the rest of the world,
however, are the ecological ones, with casualties in the worst case
approaching 2 billion (source:  Scientific American).  Granted, ecological
damage is roughly proportional to megatonnage, and that has gone down.
But can you really imagine 50% casualties?  Ask a survivor of the Holocaust
about what it is like.

> If you are quoting them in context, and if their responses are timely,
> then they are wrong.  I can cite a simple example.  I build a cruise 
> missile in a secret plant, no big deal.  I then put it in a 
> the back of a semi (with shielding) and drive it around.  Now, those
> things are so small, I could put one in my bedroom, and noone
> would know!  So, how are you going to verify that I'm not making 
> cruise missiles?  ICBM's take more effort to hide, but cruise
> is trivial...

Your point is correct, however, your example is wrong.  By our technology,
we currently have near-verifiability of the existence of a nuclear warhead
anywhere in the world.  You must remember that the zero-zero option that
Reagan proposed is no more verifiable than the nuclear freeze, which Reagan
rejected.  But in the distant future, verifiability may or may not become a
problem.  We simply don't know...