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!ucbvax!arms-d From: arms-d@ucbvax.ARPA Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V3 #23 Message-ID: <6456@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 19:01:27 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.6456 Posted: Tue Apr 23 19:01:27 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 24-Apr-85 07:29:30 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 61 From: Laurinda Rohn > from David Rogers (DRogers@MIT-OZ) > Can anyone verify the strategic points here? I had always assumed that >the famed First Strike would be against both missles and cities, but it is >suggested here that the real objective of a first strike would be to disable >the enemy's nuclear capacity while leaving cities relatively untouched, and >having enough nuclear weapons in reserve to then use "blackmail" against the >relatively unprotected cities. > > The quote about the decreasing power of warheads would seem to support >this reading. (I left out Luttwak's gratuitous digs against a freeze that >followed the second paragraph in the original.) If this really is the >top level strategy of nuclear war, then aren't we really trying to use >accuracy to remove the MAD from nuclear war? (If this is true, it is >interesting >that I have never read any media explanations of nuclear first strike that >suggest anything other than a total attack on all targets.) Which kind of attack you believe will happen depends entirely on who you talk to. There are many different objectives from which an enemy might choose. Some of the major types of strategic attacks are: 1. Counterforce - The basic intention is to destroy the enemy's strategic forces (i.e. ICBMs, bombers, major bomber airfields, that sort of stuff). This sort of attack would cause casualties, but not as many as other sorts of attacks. 2. Countermilitary - This includes counterforce as well as other military targets like army bases, smaller military airfields, conventional forces (tanks and the like), and possibly military industries. This sort of attack would create many more casualties than counterforce. 3. Countervalue - Ugly. This is the sort of attack where they go after the cities. Undoubtedly the most casualties. The industrial base in general is usually included in this attack. The basic idea is to destroy the entire society. 4. Leadership attack - Just what it says. Get the White House, the Pentagon and Congress perhaps. The idea is to leave the other side with no leadership so they don't have anyone who can approve launching a strategic attack. 5. C3 attack - Attack the enemy's command, control and communications. This attack, sometimes combined with 4., is often called a decapitation attack. The idea is to leave the enemy without the ability to launch an attack because they can't talk to each other. Those are the basic sorts of attacks, although there are many other kinds depending on whether you take subsets of each kind and combine them with others. Estimates of casualties range from down in the thousands for attacks like #4 to a million or so for #1 to upwards of 10 million for #3. The reason the media doesn't talk about things like #1 or #4 is that those attacks aren't nearly so gruesome or sensational as the country being blown to bits. I realize this sounds more than a bit perverse, but then I think the media is generally quite perverse. Why talk about a thousand casualties when you can talk about 10 million and scare people out of their wits? :-( The above are strictly my own opinions and do not necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of the Rand Corporation, its sponsors, or any other reasonable entity.