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From: medin@nike.UUCP (Milo S. Medin)
Newsgroups: net.space,net.politics
Subject: Re: Aviation Week on Star Wars
Message-ID: <15@nike.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Dec-85 14:17:59 EST
Article-I.D.: nike.15
Posted: Tue Dec 31 14:17:59 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jan-86 00:50:19 EST
References: <1289@ames.UUCP> <772@petrus.UUCP> <1149@lll-crg.ARpA> <1857@teddy.UUCP>
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Reply-To: medin@nike.UUCP (Milo S. Medin)
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Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
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Xref: watmath net.space:5063 net.politics:12744


Calling an ABM system indefensible is ridiculous.  Both the Soviets
and the US primarily target counterforce style.  There are options
for countervalue in both countries SIOP's, but if war breaks out,
counterforce targeting will probably be used.  It does the US little
good to incinerate a few million civilians when its the military
forces that you really want to take out.  I'm not going to argue
the counterforce vs. countervalue argument here.  If you are
a hardcore MAD person who thinks people still use that doctrine
operationally, I'd recommend you take a look at some of the
policy and doctrinal statements issued by both nations.

I have never been sold on a population defense system.  If its possible,
and it may be (I'm not prepared to rule out things before detailed
research has been performed), then maybe its a good thing.  If its
not, protecting out land based ICBM's is a very good thing for
us to do, because it increases stability.  And that is the name
of the game for keeping peace in a deterrent role.  

If you don't think that our ICBM's are vulnerable, then I suggest
you look up Soviet ICBM's CEP and megatonnage, and run through
the survival calculations yourself.  I won't even talk about
vulnerability of our C^3 systems.

Lastly, what is so interesting about me working at Ames?  I
work on networking here, which is my field of interest, and
NASA isn't working on any SDI projects. 

Of course, these opinions are my own and not necessarily of
my employer, but you knew that already...

					Milo

					medin@ames.arpa
					{seismo,riacs,sunybcs}!nike!medin