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From: julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.ai
Subject: Re: Star Wars North
Message-ID: <485@deepthot.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 12:05:27 EST
Article-I.D.: deepthot.485
Posted: Wed Apr  3 12:05:27 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Apr-85 05:11:57 EST
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Xref: watmath can.general:204 can.ai:59

I agree with Alan's original comments. 
Some brief comments on other remarks:
 I haven't seen anything to suggest that "NATO has approved of the
SDI".  Events generally in Nato on the other side of the atlantic
(e.g. over disposition of cruise missiles) indicate that most Nato
participants are less willing to cosy up to the US administration than
is Canada.
  Statistics indicate that $ for $, military expenditures result in
fewer new jobs per dollar spent than any other significant area of
economic activity.  The reason in short is that most of the money goes
into high-tech devices rather than into salaries/pay for ordinary
people.  Of course, the better-paid classes of engineers, technicians
and scientists do pretty well out of military expenditures.
  Not only is the SDI destablizing, but it is clearly contrary to the
terms of the 1972 ABM Treaty.  This treaty banned the development of
new anti-ballistic-missile systems which are sea-based, space-based,
or mobile-land-based, precisely because new systems of those kinds
tend to undermine the 'balance of power' that has prevailed
(imperfectly).
  I don't think anyone with technical knowledge any longer seriously
believes that the SDI has any chance of making nuclear weapons
"obsolete" as President Reagan originally said it would;  so the
virtually inevitable consequence will be just another upward spiral of
the arms race.
		Julian Davies