Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!cbnews!military
From: military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Are Aircraft Carriers Obsolete?
Summary: misattribution
Message-ID: <3374@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 23 Jan 89 02:50:53 GMT
References: <3364@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 34
Approved: military@att.att.com

In article <3364@cbnews.ATT.COM> military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:

I seem to have accidentally deleted the name of the sender of this article;
it was originated by someone in MIT Lincoln Laboratory.  Unfortunately, I
have no way to tell who wrote it... an object lesson folks; .signature
files really solve this sort of problem. At any rate, my apologies to
the author.

In any case, I am not the author.  This is the second posting of this
article, my attempts at cancelling the original having ended with
rn crashing.

Bill

-----


>Let's rule out the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons will most
>certainly spell the end of any surface force, so I will grant that naval
>forces are useless in a nuclear war. But then again, so is everything
>that has ever existed, so it becomes a moot point.

Why rule out nuclear weapons?  Just because you wouldn't like the result
(no surviving surface navy) doesn't mean it won't happen.

In a European war, the principal NATO naval mission would be to protect
shipping.  The principal Soviet naval mission would be to destroy shipping.
Why wouldn't the Soviets 'go nuclear' at sea, especially if the war were
going badly for them?  If you wipe out all the surface ships, doesn't the
naval picture look a whole lot better from the Soviet perspective?

While nuclear war at sea carries some risk of escalation, the risk isn't
nearly as great as nuclear war on land.  Since NATO sealift is so vital,
wouldn't the Soviets accept the risks of naval nuclear war?