Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucbvax.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!ucbvax!medin
From: medin@ucbvax.ARPA (Milo Medin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars -> Nuclear war
Message-ID: <5765@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 25-Mar-85 13:58:18 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5765
Posted: Mon Mar 25 13:58:18 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Mar-85 06:13:03 EST
References: <827@ames.UUCP> <5201@ucbvax.ARPA> <869@ames.UUCP> <5549@ucbvax.ARPA> <897@ames.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 99

> And if the US percieves itself as capable of attacking without unacceptable
> damage WE may attack, e.g., Grenada, Vietnam.  Why not USSR?
> 

Because the U.S. is responsible to its people, and if we did something
WRONG, the people would complain.  I see Greneda & Vietnam perfectly
justified, as many people do.  But Lebanon was not, and neither was
Vietnam in the opinion of most, so we pulled out.  You see, the US and USSR
are asymmetric, lets not forget that.  The Soviet leaadership
is accountable to noone.
> 
> I have talked to a number of people who are have worked on ABM systems
> for years.  None of them believe that star wars can protect the population
> of the US from catastrophic destruction.
> 

Of course, it depends on what you call catastrophic.  I'm not arguing
for that anyways, I'm not trying to replace counterforce and
deterrence, at least not yet.

> Star wars can, and very well might, destroy civilian space assests 
> whether nuclear war breaks out or not.  These assets are not now
> at risk.  The controller of star wars will be capable of denying
> all other nations access to space.  This will allow national sovernty (sp)
> to be established in orbit.  The nation system threatens to destroy
> our civilization on Earth, I'd like to keep free access to space.
> 


Of course!  The country that has superiority in space will enjoy
considerable advantage on the  earth.  Thats the whole idea, and both sides
know it.  I'd rather we have it than the Soviets.


> But star wars won't lessen the chance of war, it will increase it.
> Even if a Soviet first strike got our ICBMs a single Trident could
> destroy their society.  Over 60% of our nuclear force is on submarines,
> more is based on bombers, and the missles in Europe can reach much
> of Russia.  A successful first strike against this force is simply
> not credible.  With star wars I think a first strike by the side with
> the best star wars defense is extremely likely.  Star wars will
> work much better if you know when the strike comes and if some
> missles and command and control can be destroyed on the ground.  This
> is the case for the side that strikes first.  The situation is even
> worse if star wars components themselves are suseptable to a first
> strike.
> 

You know you are in  troub;le when you hear meaningless numbers like '60% of

ur nuclear force'.  60% of what?  Megatonnage?  Warheads?  Launchers?
Well, its warheads.  And most of those warheads are 40kt devices,
you need a lot of them to make up for their low yield.  Besides,
they're not counterforce capable.  And the Soviet population is so diverse
that you will have little population damage inflicted by a 
countervgalue strike by the SLBM force.  4-10% are typical estimates.
A first strike not credible?  Sure its credible, the SLBM force can't
be used as long as our population is more or less intact.  The bombers take
way too long to take off from their fields, they'll all be
incinerated on the ground by Soviet SLBM fire anyways, and likewise US
Command and Control will be decapitated so they'll be no way to launch
the ICBM's until the Soviet ICBM's hit, at which point it'll be
too late.  Given this, a mitigation of the attack by a BMD system 
would be highly useful, and thats why the Soviets are paranoid about SDI.
Because it frustrates all their targeting plans.  The US will never perform
a nuclear first strike barring some condition in Europe blowing
up, so I could care less about what the effects of enhancing a US strike
would be, they won't be used in that mode.  The Soviets have been
vulnerable to a US first strike for a long time, I see no reason
to start worrying about how much better this capability is now because
of BMD.

> No, I'm informed.  There is ONE operational space weapons system, a very
> limited Soviet system.  None of these weapons are actually in orbit at
> this moment.  There are lots of spy satellites, but I'm all
> for those.  You can't kill people with spy satellites.
> 

Nor can you kill people with ASAT.  A monopoly exists now, Soviet
monopolies trouble me very much...

> > 
> > I would prefer not having a defense budget at all,
> > but the real world isnt like that.
> > 
> Circa 1800:  'I would prefer not having slaves at all, but the 
> real world isn't like that.'

If you remember, we fought a very very painful war about that
issue to resolve it.  We can resolve the US-USSR conflict the same way,
but the costs are too high for me.   I'd rather pay the DoD budget.
Hard problems seldom have attractive solutions...


					Milo


PS By the way Al, I work at NASA Ames too,  its amazing we haven't met
in person....