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 #112 Message-ID: <8606201542.AA28168@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Fri, 20-Jun-86 10:25:00 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8606201542.AA28168 Posted: Fri Jun 20 10:25:00 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jun-86 04:11:02 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 137 Approved: arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu Arms-Discussion Digest Friday, June 20, 1986 10:25AM Volume 6, Issue 112 Today's Topics: Saving 5% (;-] Cowan's comments on double standards The nuclear decapitation study Re: Space Shuttle Militarism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1986 16:05 EDT From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Subject: Saving 5% (;-] Without wanting to prejudge one way or another how many people would or would not find life under the Soviets worth living, I would remind the readership that most people can learn to tolerate the most amazing things. Despite that, maybe a personal note is appropriate here. I spent a month in the People's Republic of China in 1975. I was truly impressed by the extent to which they had set up an infrastructure to care for human economic needs (e.g., food, shelter, etc); I wish our own society placed more emphasis on such things. On the other hand, I was quite convinced that I would have been very unhappy living there -- the price that the PRC paid for that infrastructure is enormous, consisting mostly of the sacrifice of political rights, both institutionally and culturally. Specifically, the guiding philosphy is one in which the individual subordinates himself to the community (or the state, however you choose to put it). I could not live happily under such conditions, and despite the wishes of some of my relatives, I will never live in China. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jun 86 09:49:35 pdt From: Steve Walton Re: Cowan's comments on double standards Rich Cowan (cowan@xx.lcs.mit.edu) comments: Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect a double standard in the way you define the "falling" of a government. When talking about the governments of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, I suspect you mean the overthrow of socialism and/or the removal of these countries from the Soviet sphere of influence. When talking about the Phillipines and Haiti, you definitely mean the transfer of power without any change in social system or sphere of influence. The difference is crucial. My major point was that no change *of any kind* in the government of a totalitarian state has come about except by the application of external force. Pol Pot was overthrown by the Vietnamese invasion and replaced by another Communist regime. It is true that the result moved Cambodia from the Chinese to the Soviet sphere of influence, but the country is still Communist. I think we would all agree that any change in the leadership of a totalitarian country which was not the result of internal Communist Party decisions or of external force would be unprecedented, whether such change resulted from popular revolt, military coup, or replacement of one Communist Party by another. We did not send US tanks into the streets of Rome when Communist members were elected to the Italian Parliament; try to imagine members of the Capitalist Party being elected to the Supreme Soviet. What should US policy be? Should we stand firmly for the overthrow of all Communist regimes? Should we expand contacts with them as much as possible in the hope that exposure to external influence will eventually change their government? Do we implicitly endorse their form of government by carrying on trade and diplomatic relations? Should we enter into arms-control agreements, however imperfect, or attempt to bankrupt them by daring them to match our large defense budgets? Does our hostility actually strengthen them by giving them something with which to distract their citizens from internal problems? These are the fundamental questions of US-SU relations, and in order to answer them on a sound basis, we must harbor no illusions about the SU. ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 18 June 1986 14:30-EDT From: michael%ucbiris at BERKELEY.EDU (Tom Slone [(415)486-5954]) To: arms-d Re: The nuclear decapitation study According to the Wall Street Journal (Feb. 2, 1986), a Congressional commission made a report regarding the vulnerability of the U.S. strategic command and control system. The Pentagon considered it's conclusion so dangerous that only four people (President, the Sec. of Defense, the Deputy Sec. of Defense, and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) are allowed to read the report (excluding its authors!). The U.S.'s military electronic communication system is apparently so vulnerable that it could be rendered useless by a handful of nuclear warheads. As a result of the report, the Pentagon and RCA have embarked upon a $1 billion project called Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). GWEN would create hundreds of communication relay nodes, each consisting of 300 foot towers connected to 600 foot underground copper screens. In addition to these nodes would be 57 30 story towers encircling the continental U.S. designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse. ------------------------------ From: decwrl!decvax!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Date: Fri, 20 Jun 86 03:32:28 edt Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Militarism > ...With the installation of the Navy's head of space operations > at the helm of NASA, and joint appeals from NASA and the AIR Force for > a replacement shuttle, the real purpose is clear. The author of this piece is presumably unaware that a military man as head of a NASA program is nothing special or new. The director of Project Apollo from 1964 to 1969 was an Air Force general. Not because there was anything military about Apollo, but simply because the Air Force had experience at running big complex aerospace projects. I would assume that the Navy man being referred to is Dick Truly, who was an astronaut long before he was head of Naval space operations. As for the joint appeal for a replacement shuttle, wouldn't you expect the shuttle's biggest customer to be concerned about a 25% loss in capability? > ... Establishing > space colonies or homesteading on some heretofore unknown hospitable > planet, would require giant leaps in scientific understanding... Nonsense. Most of what is required is straightforward engineering development. That, plus a firm long-term commitment to the project. I.e., money. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of Arms-Discussion Digest *****************************