Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!ARMS-D-Request From: ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #101 Message-ID: <8606060356.AA25912@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Thu, 5-Jun-86 22:34:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8606060356.AA25912 Posted: Thu Jun 5 22:34:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jun-86 19:42:35 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 250 Approved: arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, June 5, 1986 10:34PM Volume 6, Issue 101 Today's Topics: Administrivia: re-sumissions from RISKS Meteors mistaken for Atomic Explosions ICBM destruct & crisis control Analysis of trends in SDI Soviet violations of treaties... A Star Wars Query Older missles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 10:19 EDT From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Administrivia: re-sumissions from RISKS There is a substantial overlap regarding SDI from RISKS. I will forward to ARMS-D SDI and other military issues, and I will forward to RISKS anything interesting that comes to ARMS-D, unless otherwise requested. ------------------------------ Subject: Meteors mistaken for Atomic Explosions Date: Thu, 05 Jun 86 08:42:44 -0800 From: Tim Shimeall Interesting that this subject would appear on ARMS-D just now. For an article on just this subject, see Time magazine, June 9, 1986, p. 65 (Science section). The concern raised in that article is that a high-altitude explosion of a meteor (as happened in 1908 in Siberia) would be mistaken for a nuclear attack. This would apparently not be a problem in the US or USSR, which have detectors that can tell the difference between the two, but would be a problem in Third World countries (for example, Pakistan). Tim ------------------------------ Date: Thu 5 Jun 86 12:14:42-EDT From: Marc Vilain Subject: ICBM destruct & crisis control Re: (self-) destruction of ICBMs in flight ___________________________________________ All commercial rocket launches, as well as all launches of military satellites, are performed with range safety destruct mechanisms on the launch vehicles. These are used to destroy the rocket if it should go off course and threaten to crash on populated areas. Marty Moore has written eloquently (and at length) about this in several issues of the RISKS digest. As I understand, all test launches of ICBMs are performed with the same range safety destruct mechanisms. Deployed ICBMs, however, do not currently have this destruct mechanism: it is removed before deployment. Incidentally, Richard Garwin has advocated leaving range safety destruct mechanisms on ICBMs as a much more cost-effective way of guarding against accidental launch than would be the SDI. On a related topic, Garwin discusses at length the various options for arming or disarming ICBMs in flight in his seminal article on launch under attack. (Richard L. Garwin, Launch Under Attack to Redress Minuteman Vulnerability?, International Security, 4 (3), Winter 1979, pp. 117-139). Re: Crisis control centers ___________________________ A good popular introduction to the idea of crisis control can be found in William Ury's book _Beyond_The_Hotline_ (Houghton Mifflin). It covers past crises, escalation, accidental war, and Ury's own proposal for a joint crisis control center. There is also a recent article in Technology Review by Hilliard Roderick: "Crisis Management, Preventing Accidental War", Technology Review, August/September 1985. Incidentally, I don't think the peace movement (multi-faceted as it is) is at all in disfavor of the crisis control proposals. This at least is my impression from my contacts within the Freeze organizations. My impression is that a crisis control center is viewed as a positive step towards better bilateral understanding, negotiation, freezes, reductions, etc. marc vilain. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 16:30 EDT From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Analysis of trends in SDI Many thanks to Gary Chapman for his summary of SDI developments. Just a couple of comments. .. The significance of the ASAT moratorium when combined with the "restrictive" interpretation of the ABM Treaty is that it makes space testing of SDI components virtually impossible. I believe that the ASAT moratorium applies only for this year (since it was tied to an appropriations bill), and only to the Miniature Homing Vehicle -- I think that ASAT lasers could be tested, but that is moot, since that won't happen for a while at any rate. Secretary Weinberger ... does not consider Paul Nitze's criterion of the SDI being "cost effective at the margin" to be essential to the program. Weinberger said in effect that he thinks the SDI should be funded no matter what it costs, and no matter how cheaply it can be offset by the Soviets. The phrase that Abrahmson is now using is that "defenses should be affordable". As the NY Times put it, to see what DoD considers affordable, consider the prices it pays for diodes. ... Both Lieutenant General Abrahamson and Richard Perle went on the record on December 4th as saying that the SDI's primary purpose is to protect missile silos... You mean the ultimate purpose of SDI, or something that could be done "on the way" to a population defense. In any case, could you pls provide a cite for this? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1986 16:45 EDT From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Soviet violations of treaties... Gary Chapman made an interesting point in his analysis of SDI that prompts this question. He noted that ... The Reagan administration ... will begin to retaliate against [Soviet] violations with "tit-for-tat" violations on the part of the United States... Some key members of Congress, however, think that the proper response to Soviet cheating is to actually hold their feet to the fire and bring them into line with the treaty provisions, instead of eroding the treaty even further with deliberate U.S. violations. There is no enforcing agency for treaty compliance. What is the proper response when one side in fact does violate a treaty? I'm not happy with the most common answer I have heard. This common answer says "If they violate a treaty, then you can withdraw from it." But such an policy does not distinguish between significant breaches and insignificant breaches, and is thus a club with very poor resolution -- it is your only weapon, and it is a drastic one, leaving you with a problem of credibility. The dove also says "Resolve it in the Standing Consultative Commission." But that assumes resolution is possible. Certainly the SCC route should be tried, but what happens when the two parties cannot come to an agreement in the SCC -- what do you do then? But the route of "proportionate responses" is just as clearly a losing battle. They say they are in compliance; we say they are not. Our proportionate response is by definition a deliberate violation of the Treaty, and thus we have stated that proportionate responses are the proper action to take when the Treaty is violated. This invites the other side to take its own proportionate responses in reaction to ours. Should the policy be to accept "substantial compliance" with the Treaty as adequate? In some ways, yes. But how do you establish when a "peripheral" violation (or more likely many of them) becomes a "substantial" violation? Is it possible to establish what is central and what is peripheral as you write the Treaty? I don't think so. How do you prevent nibbling away at the edges? Set the limits so that small violations are strategically insignificant? Good idea, but how can you establish such a point and formalize it as part of the treaty? As a person who generically believes in arms control, I am troubled. Comments from both the left and the right invited. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jun 86 15:23 PDT From: DonSmith.PA@Xerox.COM Re: "A Star Wars Query - Alfred Beebe " I have heard others mention spinning mirrors on warheads as an SDI countermeasure, and I don't see why they wouldn't work either. Indeed, there are so many weaknesses of this sort in the SDI systems proposed thus far (What about cruise missile interception?) that one can't help but wonder what are the real motives and goals of the promoters of SDI. I agree with Robert Bowman that taking military control of space is one, and I believe that the defense contract bonanza is another. The original rhetoric about a nuclear shield is fading away, and now we hear more about enhancing deterrence and boosting the economy. A considerable danger in launching a huge program like this without sufficient forethought is that it builds so much momentum, in terms of its involvement of people's careers and of economic sectors, that it becomes imbedded in the culture and effectively takes on a life of its own. At that point, those who are committed to it and dependent on it will develop whatever reasoning that they have to in order to keep the thing going, and problems like that of the mirrors are brushed aside (deflected?). It should be clear to us (humans) by now that there is no ultimate weapon and no ultimate defense, but that instead we face a never-ending (until the weapons are used) cycle of countermeasures until we can reach a level of understanding where we and our counterparts across the water both realize that this cycle is not in either of our best interests and not in the best interests of world security. Then we can begin to seek other paths (in earnest, that is), and having observed the inspiring achievements of the human species to date, I have no doubts that we can find those paths if we wholeheartedly resolve to do so. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jun 86 16:22:08 PDT From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Older missles The old air-breathing winged missiles like Regulus were indeed dropped fairly completely in favor of rocket-powered ballistic missiles. Partly this was just the attractions of the new technology (far higher speed and much more difficult interception) and its sheer newness obscuring the virtues of the older approach. But partly it was recognition that the old air-breathers weren't really very good. They were essentially unmanned kamikaze bombers: they were almost the size of manned aircraft and flew at normal aircraft altitudes. This meant that they were easier to intercept, since they started out equal and weren't as clever, and they were also not much less expensive to build. They were also costly to train with (since they were not recoverable), and required accommodations comparable to those of aircraft (except for needing a launcher instead of a runway). Finally, the old vacuum-tube control and guidance systems were so troublesome that a new generation was clearly going to be needed to make the whole idea work, and ballistic missiles looked like a much better way to spend the money. The basic concept has only really become viable for strategic missiles with the newer technology that has reduced size and weight spectacularly (in particular, aircraft can now carry handfuls of cruise missiles, whereas in the old days *submarines* carrying one or two Regulus were marginal at best) and made extremely-low-altitude flight practical. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************