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From: banner@ubc-vision.CDN (Allen Banner)
Newsgroups: can.ai
Subject: Star Wars North
Message-ID: <895@ubc-vision.CDN>
Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 23:29:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.895
Posted: Sun Mar 31 23:29:17 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-85 11:17:52 EST
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 144


We seem to be straying from the question of whether Canada should become
involved in SDI research.

I would like to raise another issue which was brought up by Chris:

     >SDI is a research project and as such is not destabilizing.

I think that it is important to realize that weapons do not have to be
actually deployed before the destabilization is felt.  Weapons systems
require years to develop and deploy.  Each side must try to evaluate what
the other will do in the years ahead and start working on their response to
that in order to make sure they don't get "caught with their pants down".

	Imagine that you are in a pair of *Soviet* shoes.  Reagan has 
now got 21 more MX missiles.  They are to be placed in Minuteman 
silos and are vulnerable to a first-strike.  It follows that they 
cannot be intended to be used in a retaliatory strike...are they 
an American first-strike weapon?  The Trident submarines are each 
capable of annihilating most of the Soviet Union using the new 
Trident II missiles with a flight time of only 10 minutes or so 
(not enough time to respond) and are largely invulnerable...another 
first-strike weapon?  The cruise missiles are capable of evading 
detection and penetrating through defenses...another first-strike 
weapon?  In the Strategic Computing Initiative, one of the projects 
is to develop the capability to develop an "autonomous vehicle" 
which are capable of "reconnaissance and attack missions".  They 
specify that some will work in high radiation environments.  There
have been a multitude of reports of talk in the Pentagon of "fighting
and winning a protracted nuclear war".

	Now these guys (remember you're a Russian) are talking of 
putting up an impenetrable umbrella to protect themselves (ie the 
U.S. not the rest of the NATO allies?).  However, there is a 
widespread concern that the umbrella will "leak" up to 10 or 20 
percent...enough to mean the end of American society in the event 
of a full Soviet nuclear strike.  What if the defense was intended 
to protect the U.S. from a weak retaliatory strike by the U.S.S.R. 
after an American first strike?!!  It would be much more effective 
for that!  It would also be very effective to destroy Soviet 
satellites (to blind them) just prior to an American first-strike.

	You find it very hard to believe that the Americans would do 
such a thing.  Well I find it hard to believe that's Ronald Reagan's 
real intention as well.  The all important point, however, is that 
the Russians may not find it so hard to believe...they are nervous!

	William Arkin quotes a written answer from the Pentagon to 
congressional inquiries in 1984:

	All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, Soviet
	paranoia concerning U.S. possibility of attacking the 
	Soviet Union with nuclear weapons is not only pervasive,
	but also very deep-seated....Periods of rapid and com-
	prehensive build-up in U.S. strategic forces...seem to
	have had no effect whatsoever on Soviet paranoid fear.

			Arkin, William M. 1985.
			The drift toward first strike.
			Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41(1):5-6.

	I don't believe for a moment that the Americans are working 
toward a first-strike capability.  They are doing the same thing as 
the Soviets.  They are trying to guess the moves of the other side 
*in advance* using the only prudent criterion...better safe than 
sorry.  With both sides doing this, weapons systems such as SDI 
(and the Soviet response) become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If this 
research goes ahead in a major way, you can bet that it will eventually 
be implemented because it will *have* to be...the Soviets will have 
their own programs going!  Another unsettling factor (Arkin again),

	There is no mad war planner in the basement of the 
	Pentagon to be flushed out.  Nor is there a shred of
	evidence that the Pentagon is consciously preparing 
	for a premeditated first strike.  A far more complex
	and dangerous situation exists:  the accumulation of 
	weapons capabilities, together with improved planning,
	command and communications, are shaving away uncertain-
	ties, creating forces which will be perceived by their
	controllers as too tempting to let alone during a con-
	flict.

	Whether we have the weapons or not is not the only factor 
contributing to destabilization...the fact that one side perceives 
that the other is trying to develop a system is also destabilizing 
since it forces them to develop something as a "defense" to it.  In 
the case of SDI, the Soviet response could be to build their own 
defensive system (very expensive), build more offensive weapons to 
saturate the defense (what they have publicly said their response 
will be), or worst of all, to launch a pre-emptive strike to get rid 
of the problem (the U.S. and its NATO allies) once and for all...ne-
glecting the fact that this response would probably induce a nuclear 
winter and spell their doom as well as ours.  We must consider how 
*they* will react to our moves and should tailor what we do to 
encourage them to react in a manner which will enhance our *mutual* 
security...it has been said that we all live in a very fragile life-
boat suspended in space...we cannot blow holes in the other end of 
the lifeboat without drowning ourselves!

	Surely, any stable peace must be built upon mutual trust.
And that trust can only be developed over time through a gradual
reduction in military forces with an accompanying increase in 
dialogue and understanding between the two nations.  Neither side 
must be put in a position where they feel they are vulnerable 
until relations are such that there is a mutual belief that each 
side has nothing to gain through aggression.  Yes, its pretty 
tough to trust them when you hear about some of things happening 
in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  However, we *do* trust them in other
respects such as international trade and going to funerals of
leaders to express "our condolences" (ie. Margaret Thatcher and 
George Bush did not fear for their lives when they went over there).
It is also true that deterrence has the undesirable quality of 
encouraging the opposing side to become the monster that we want 
to deter because of all the military posturing and exchanges of 
threats.  Holding a gun to somebody's head is a great way to make 
a normally passive person turn to violence as a means to save their 
skin.

	Regardless of how difficult it is, somebody must start the 
development of that international trust.  Star Wars is an attempt 
to use technology to evade this step, and the loss of face which 
would occur if it became widely known that Soviets are human too!
As hard as it may be to believe that spending $26 billion over 
five years could be "trying to take the easy way out", that's 
exactly what it is!  And that's only a start!  Here is an excerpt
from a article of the arms discussion news group:

"Hans Bethe, in a lecture at Cal Tech last week, very conservatively 
estimated the cost of deploying the space-based laser alone, even 
after the outrageous assumption that they would operate at all, would 
cost between 2 and 6 TRILLION dollars."

(1 trillion dollars looks like $1,000,000,000,000 when in numbers) 
If you spent 1 MILLION dollars for EVERY DAY since the birth of 
Christ, you would *still* not have 1 trillion dollars!  Think of all
the other things in the world that money could be spent on.

To believe that there can be a "technological panacea" for our dilemma is a
*very* dangerous misconception.  The fundamental problem is one of human
interrelations and greed (for money and power).  Canadians should NOT
participate in SDI because it simply aggravates these underlying problems.


				Al Banner