Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!arms-d From: ARMS-D-Request@MIT-MC.ARPA (Moderator) Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #20 Message-ID: <8601130328.AA08975@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 22:21:00 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8601130328.AA08975 Posted: Sun Jan 12 22:21:00 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jan-86 02:36:54 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: ARMS-D%MIT-MC.ARPA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 82 Approved: arms-d@mit-mc.arpa Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, January 12, 1986 10:21PM Volume 6, Issue 20 Today's Topics: Aegis reliability & Testing in the Military Offensive Star Wars lasers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun 12 Jan 1986 10:40:32 EST From: Paul Dietz Subject: Aegis reliability & Testing in the Military You can't claim Aegis has been fully tested, because it hasn't been tested in a realistic environment (that is, in an actual carrier battle group facing intelligent opponents). History tells us that no weapons system or strategy can be evaluated properly short of actual battle. Tests too often reveal only the biases of the investigators, and often fail to accurately simulate what the opponent will actually do. I've often felt getting around this conflict of interest (those in charge of developing weapons/tactics are the same who test the tactics) is the most important single thing the US military can do to become more effective. My (admittedly radical) proposal is to break the military into several parallel organizations with the same functions, and have simulated competitions between the organizations. Indeed, why not privatize the whole defense business? This would break DOD's weapons monopsony and make the establishment of a neutral judging organization easier (perhaps Peter Uberoff (sp?) could run it). Of course, if we're not careful "hostile takeover" could acquire an entirely new meaning... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 86 11:00:10 pst From: "Dave Caulkins; Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; 415-322-3778" Subject: Offensive Star Wars lasers >From an article in the 12 Jan 86 San Jose Mercury (front page): "Laser weapons being designed as part of ... [SDI] ... could more easily be used to incinerate enemy cities than to protect the United States against Soviet missiles ... The study, which was produced by R&D Associates [LA] ... cites data indicating that 'in a matter of hours, a laser defense system powerful enough to cope with the ballistic missile threat can also destroy the enemy's major cities by fire. ... the attack time for each city beung only a matter of minutes. ...' Lasers 'have the potential of initiating massive urban fires and even of destroying the enemy's major cities by fire in a matter of hours,' according to the article [in the current issue of Physics and Society, a publication of the American Physical Society] by Caroline L. Herzenberg, a government physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory. 'Such mass fires might be expected to generate smoke in amounts comparable to the amounts generated in some major nuclear exchange scenarios.' ... That could cause 'a climatic disaster similar to nuclear winter,' ... 'The free electron laser, the excimer laser, and the deuterium fluoride chemical laser ... all can go through the atmosphere and cause fires.' ... 'The lasers can be empolyed in a manner not contemplated by the SDI,' cautioned Albert A. Latter and Ernest A. Martinelli, who wrote the eight-page R&D Associates study and are highly regarded advocates of a stronger U.S. defense. 'Specifically, they can be targeted against the same entities the were designed to protect: the cities. After spending hundreds of billions of dollars we would be back where we started from: deterrence by retaliation. Our cities would be hostage to lasers instead of nuclear weapons,' the report said. ..." ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************