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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Dangerous Military Myth
Message-ID: <1203@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Mar-86 09:16:53 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1203
Posted: Thu Mar 13 09:16:53 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Mar-86 22:26:59 EST
References: <373@ihnet.UUCP> <711@mtuxn.UUCP> <59@gilbbs.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 76

In article <59@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller) writes:
>> Incidentally, Japan was forced by surrender with 2
>> nuclear weapons (rather small by today's standards) , 
>
>   Irrelevant and misleading.  First, no one in the world had eve been
>attacked
>with nuclear weapons before.  The shocking magnitude of the destruction was
>mentally and emotionally crippling to the Japanese, and much of the rest of
>humanity.  MOreover, as *I* understand the history of the Japanese bombings,
>the Japanese has already offered to surrender prior to the first bomb, and
>agreed to unconditional surrender prior to the dropping of the second bomb.
>*YET*, we dropped them anyway!  I contend that the dropping of the bombs was
>not, in fact, what stimulated the Japanese surrender.

I don't believe that this account is correct, although the facts do support
your "irrelevant and misleading" comment.  The Japanese were discussing
surrender; some of those involved think that they were about to surrender,
but others doubt it.  The second bomb was dropped to convince the Japanese
that this was not a one-shot deal; that we could keep doing it.  (Of course,
we couldn't at that time; it would have taken several months to produce any
more bombs -- but the Japanese were thereby convinced that we could keep it
up.)

>   Unreasonable analogy.  In the first place, if the choice is between total
>annihilation of our society, or the potential murder of half our population,
>I would think that opting for the latter makes more sense.  At least then, 
>there will be someone left *TO* resist!

Ah, but this isn't choice we are offered, either.  We aren't dealing with
the *certain* destruction of our society, but with *some risk* thereof.
There might not be a nuclear war.  (The Russians also might leave us alone
if we disarmed.)  The value of maintaining our nuclear forces depends heavily
on what the probablilities are.  If the chance of nuclear war is 90% (in,
say, the next 50 years -- beyond that, who knows what the situation will
be?), then drastic measures are called for.  If the chance is more like .01%,
a rather different reaction is appropriate.  Personally, I would put it at
about 10% -- which is much too high for comfort, but ...

Furthermore, I believe that drastically reducing our nuclear stockpile would
*increase* the chance of war, instead of decreasing it.

>   Really?  It is a known fact that the more complex a system is, the more
>likely
>it is to fail.  MOreover, system reliabilty is directly related to the number
>of components in a system.  Thus, the more nuclear weaponry we have, themore 
>likely an accident becomes.  It is also reasonable to assue that there are'
>nations and terrorist groups who would be willing to steal nuclear weapons
>and technology.  This need not be proven.  It only makes sense to protect
>ourselves against it.  The more we have, the more difficult such protection
>becomes.

Yes, but the other possible cause of failure is that the Russians might
decide it is advantageous to attack us.  They are much more likely to do
this if they perceive themselves as having a nuclear superiority.

>   Oops...gee whiz.  I have to jump on Sevener here.  I would not at this
>time support unilateral disarmament.  What I *DO* support is a uni (or bi)
>lateral weapons *FREEZE*.   Not at all the same thing!

A unilateral freeze and bilateral freeze are not at all the same thing,
either.

>   I can't figure wehere Sevener gets the number 2 from, but our impressive
>nuclear arsenal certainly did nothing to deter the Soviets from invading
>Afghanistan, did it?

That isn't true.  It wasn't *sufficient* to deter the Soviets from
invading Afghanistan at the time they did.  The American reaction was
certainly one the things the Russians took into account in deciding to
invade, and (perceived) American military power is the principle reason for
them to care about our reaction.  I hope you aren't going to argue that
the size of our nuclear arsenal has nothing to do with our perceived military
power?

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108