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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (James H. Andrews)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canadian participation in Star Wars.
Message-ID: <1093@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 20:27:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1093
Posted: Mon Jun  3 20:27:11 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Jun-85 12:44:25 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <524@alberta.UUCP> <916@mnetor.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (James H. Andrews)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 46
Summary: 

I submit to you that SDI, the Star Wars plan, is not a program of altruistic
research designed to rid the world of nuclear weapons.  Rather, I submit, it
is a program of research designed to upset the Cold War balance of terror in
favour of the U.S., as such is dangerously destabilizing, and as such is not
a good thing for Canada to get into as it stands.

{ Note:  I'm not even considering the unlikelihood of anything coming of SDI
  (which makes it even more of a sop to the military industry of the U.S.)
  or the violation of various treaties that would come of the U.S.  deploying
  such a system. }

A Star Wars system, if deployed, would have only one effect on the world's
military situation:  it would decrease the effectiveness of the Soviets'
weapons in times of war.  If the Reagan administration were sincere in
wanting SDI to "make nuclear weapons obsolete", it could take several
different approaches than it has.

One thing it could do is to develop the SDI technology in full cooperation
with the Soviets, or have full disclosure of the products of that research
to the Soviets.  This would allow both superpowers to deploy Star Wars systems
simultaneously, decreasing the number of effective nuclear weapons while
maintaining stability.  This, of course, was the gist of Reagan's crazed
suggestion in the second Presidential debate, which was immediately
explained away by his advisors.

Another positive way Star Wars technology could be applied is for the US to
commit itself to dismantling a comparable number of nuclear weapons as would
be destroyed by a Star Wars system.  This is basically a "nuclear build-down"
scheme, explained before in this newsgroup by people more knowledgeable in
its intricacies than I.

As proposed by the Reagan administration, the SDI research does none of this.
It simply moves toward development of a neat doodad we can put in orbit to
blow away Soviet missiles.

So far, indeed, it's only research.  But that makes me even more amazed that
they haven't at least suggested that maybe they will attempt to use the
technology being researched in a truly positive way, sometime in the future.

Make no mistake.  The *only* nuclear weapons that the Reaganauts want to make
obsolete are the *Soviet* ones.  If Canada joins in the SDI research at all,
it should be to research ways in which the technology could be turned around
to benefit humankind, the way Uncle Ronnie says it should be.

                          --Jamie.
                         ...alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews