From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #132 Article-I.D.: ucb.1443 Posted: Tue Jun 29 00:45:34 1982 Received: Tue Jun 29 07:36:00 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Tue Jun 29 00:07:57 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Extra Volume 0 : Issue 132 Today's Topics: Economic Weapons Watering the Tree of Liberty Comments on Comments by Wdoherty Risking death Citizen's rights, no-first-use (rebuttal) Comments on Access to Energy Piece ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jun 1982 2210-PDT From: Jim McGrathSubject: Economic Weapons It is perfectly proper and moral to try and destroy the Soviet economy. You can view it as simply a form of strategic warfare. Or you can consider it a way of SAVING lives - ie if we can defeat the Soviets economically, then we need never have a world war. Of course you have to be careful not to provoke the USSR into a military conflict while you are attacking them economically. Actually, while I support using high-tech and food as weapons, I really feel that our greatest weapon is information. The Soviet people have all their information carefully managed by the government - providing them with an independent source of information would probably force the Soviet government to act more responsibly. Even something as simple as broadcasting the network national news to the Soviets would do wonders. The only things you have to worry about are 1) the news MUST be non-censored (which is why it should be produced by the networks, not the government), 2) we have to be able to safely send it (ie a communications station is space, well protected by our government from attack by the Soviet government), and 3) the Soviet citizens have to be able to receive the programs without difficulty (ie we need a POWERFUL transmitter with small ground stations, for which we supply plans (or even parts!)). Jim ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 1982 2325-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Watering the Tree of Liberty From CSVAX.upstill@Berkeley Excuse me if the accusation is misplaced, but it seems to me that it is the Right which is always reminding us that those who are not prepared to fight for liberty deserve to lose it. Excused, although it is misinterpreted if not misplaced. Yes, people must fight for their freedoms - but that is only because they WILL lose them if they do not. I never met someone who claimed that fighting IN AND OF ITSELF is a good thing. Thus if you can keep your freedoms without inviting in an occupying power to shoot random citizens every hour as long as you do not comply to their orders, then you should. I prefer a citizen army to a draft one. But I prefer a draft army to a mercenary one. These preferences are based on their relative threats to our freedoms. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 0142-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Comments on Comments Comments on the comments of Will Doherty's (WDOHERTY@BBNG) message of June 20. MILITARY EDUCATION from Jim McGrath-- Why don't we study disarmament instead of military arts? You cannot study what does not exist (a flip, but concise, answer). We have a lot of experience fighting wars, and little of peace. And what we do know about peace seems to characterize that state more accurately as the "absence of war." Thus we need to know about wars and the military who fight them. In any case, I'll promote any plan to spend a portion of the present arms budget on education rather than further destruction. Let's not take the funds from the social service budget though, OK? It would most logical to take them from the Department of Education. US-USSR FUNDING from Cox-- It just does not make sense to wage war for peace (this in reference especially to U.S. refusal to reject first strike--at least Brezhnev had the sense to wield some popularity by his propagandistic commitment to end Soviet plans for first strike). Right - the USSR was "smart" enough to use their pledge for a propaganda ploy. That really inspires confidence in me as to their commitment to their pledge. More to the point, as has been repeatedly covered here, we CANNOT honestly renounce first use of nukes without building up our conventional strength - something "peace" advocates also oppose. RISKING DEATH from Cox-- The centralized control of armed forces in both the United States and the Soviet Union makes such democratic decisions impossible. What are you talking about? "Centralized control?" You MUST mean CIVILIAN control, or somesuch, since CENTRALIZATION has no relation to democracy per se. And the fact is that the US military is responsible to a democratically elected government, while the military forces of the USSR often DETERMINE their "civilian" government, which is in any case an outright dictatorship. At least until we are sure that our very survival depends on the use of violence, I feel that we should not use violent means. If someone threatens to cut off your arm, would you disarm them? Even if it involved striking them, and thus committing "violence?" As stated, your position is the ultimate in pacifism - and thus very counter survival in this rough world of ours. We can start by recognizing that almost all of the conflicts we have are solved peacefully, that violence is the exception not the rule. Most decisions in this world are made peacefully. Most decisions are also trivial. Important decisions are often decided violently. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 0152-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Re: risking death From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL I agree only on my personal right to risk my life for my beliefs. I most emphatically disagree with anyone else's right to make that decision for me, or for anyone else. You are perfectly entitled to your beliefs. But, quite frankly, that is NOT how the world is run, or has ever run. And no state of any consequence CAN be run in that manner. The solution is simple - renounce your citizenship. That is the only way you will ever be true to your beliefs. One of my major concerns right now is the bellicose stance of the US; we are the ones who insist on the right to use nuclear weapons first and/or in response to a conventional attack. For good reason - the "peace" advocates have steadily depleted our conventional military forces so that we would have no alternative. I'll advocate renouncing the first use of nukes when we can handle any conventional Soviet attack - to do so beforehand would be stupid and/or dishonest. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 0815-PDT From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL Subject: citizen's rights, no-first-use (rebuttal) Like most simple solutions, this one [renouncing citizenship] is wrong. Far better to retain citizenship and try to change the state. Sakahrov is more effective (and braver) than Solzhenitsyn. Talk about stupid ! Even the US military admits that even limited tactical use of nukes is quite likely to escalate to The Full Nuclear Exchange; to risk destruction of the ozone layer, complete destruction of our society (and that of the Soviets plus lots of innocent bystanders), etc., etc. for some supposed 5 or 10 year time scale political/military advantage has got to be the height of folly. The more so since precision guided munitions make it possible to redress any supposed conventional imbalance. What are your references for "peace" advocate depletion of conventional forces ? ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 1021-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Re: citizen's rights, no-first-use (rebuttal) CAULKINS@USC-ECL Like most simple solutions, this one is wrong. Far better to retain citizenship and try to change the state. That is my whole point - if you believe (as you stated) that the majority of people should not have the power to make decisions binding on you that might entail your death, then you have NO recourse but renouncing citizenship. For to continue to be a citizen entails your commitment to abide by the rule of the majority (minus our minority rights safeguards) - a position you oppose on principle. I cannot see how you can reconcile the two differing stances. Note that this problem is not new one - see in particular CRITO. CAULKINS@USC-ECL Sakahrov is more effective (and braver) than Solzhenitsyn. Your belief does not correspond to that of either gentlemen. Either would gladly give their lives for a cause decided to be just by a state they considered to be justly constituted. Unlike you and I, they will never have such a chance in their homeland. CAULKINS@USC-ECL Talk about stupid ! Even the US military admits that even limited tactical use of nukes is quite likely to escalate to The Full Nuclear Exchange; to risk destruction of the ozone layer, complete destruction of our society (and that of the Soviets plus lots of innocent bystanders), etc., etc. for some supposed 5 or 10 year time scale political/military advantage has got to be the height of folly. Ever hear of a strategy called DETERRENCE? I NEVER advocated a first strike itself - so please direct your comments to what I SAID, NOT what you consider *stupid* (the implication being that anyone who would dare to disagree with you would HAVE to be stupid). Setup Strawmen on you own time and WITHOUT use of my words. Your kneejerk reaction is quite insulting and throughly discredits any valid arguments you may assemble. CAULKINS@USC-ECL The more so since precision guided munitions make it possible to redress any supposed conventional imbalance. Once again, keep your rebuttal to what I SAY - if you do then you will find no difference between your "rebuttal" and my statement above. Otherwise don't bother to comment on my messages - you apparently have not read them anyway. CAULKINS@USC-ECL What are your references for "peace" advocate depletion of conventional forces ? Come on now - do I have to cite 35 years of effort on the part of liberals in Congress to cut the defense budget? Cuts which were made, at best, across the board, and, at worse, in the "low priority" areas - manpower levels, weapon readiness, spare parts, and, in general, anything and everything needed for a conventional war? The only time the liberals ever let up was during the Vietnam War - which, ironically, was THEIR war. And all this time they painted themselves (and were accepted) as advocates of peace (as opposed to those bad old conservatives - once again with Vietnam from 62 to 68 as an exception). And everyone else who are public advocates of "peace" have always supported these efforts to cut the budget of the wicked and wasteful DoD, so that more tax money could be spent on welfare, food stamps, and medicare (and recently social security). You may say these people, by ignoring the realities of this world, and thereby probably INCREASING the chances of war, are not true advocates of peace. And I agree (as you can tell, once again, by a simple and straightforward reading of my message). Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 0857-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: WWI : WWII :: WWII : WWIII From: Herb Lin (5) Claim: There has never been a war as terrible as the next one. So nuclear war isn't much different than previous wars? It is worse in the same way that WWII was worse than WWI? If this really the claim being made, then someone doesn't understand the orders of magnitude involved. The kill rate in a nuclear war would increase by a factor of a hundred or a thousand. That kind of increase is utterly unprecedented; previous wars involved kill rate changes of at most 10. Alas, while I agreed with many of your comments on "Sober Facts," here the numbers simply do not fit. To pick round numbers, in WWI we had a total of 10 million killed; in WWII 50 million. Thus a rough increase of fivefold. WWIII could involve 250 million deaths (ie strikes by both major powers which are not absolutely effective). Actually, we should allow for 500 million deaths (that factor of ten you spoke of for PAST wars). A factor of a hundred is a wipeout of humanity - one of a thousand is simply impossible (we do NOT have 50 billion people!). Indeed, from the numbers it looks like WWIII will involve an increase in the butcher's bill of about an order of magnitude - the same rate of growth as for all past wars. And if we postpone WWIII to 2020 or so, the percentage of the world's population killed should be the same as in WWII - a sharp contrast with the increase in that percentage between WWI and WWII. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 1121-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Nuking LA From: Herb Lin (1) Claim: a single nuclear bomb cannot wipe out a whole city: You would need 438 one-megaton bombs to destroy Los Angeles [1], and none of them could be "wasted" on pulverizing the rubble, or you would need more. Being an avid "fan" of the desert down south, lets look at the numbers using an area of 3000 square miles for LA (as noted in the clarification in the July 82 ACCESS TO ENERGY), the formula for overpressure Herb Lin gave, and two "targets" - 5 PSI and 10 PSI - as the effective radius of destruction. For 10 PSI we have an effective radius of slightly under 10 kilofeet, which gives about 10 square miles per one megaton bomb max. That is a min of 300 bombs before circle fitting, and thus I can see the number going up to the 438 ACCESS TO ENERGY mentioned. This is far from the "very few one megaton bombs" you mentioned Herb! For 5 PSI we have an effective radius of slightly over 13 kilofeet, which gives about 20 square miles per one megaton bomb max. That is a min of 150 bombs before circle fitting - still a substantial number. I suspect that varying altitudes of the bursts will change these figures, and firestorm damage, although highly dependent on the particular target, should be taken into account. Thus the "grain of salt" that the "sober facts" must be taken with. But they are not out and out lies. Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 1137-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Nuking America Of course, even taking a couple of hundred 1 MEG warheads to destroy LA implies that the Soviets could kill 120 or so million Americans a couple of times over (after 120 million the population density drops too much). Thus their threat is certainly nothing to be ignored. However, it does make clear that an "effective" first strike, killing 90% of their warheads, would significantly decrease US injuries. Thus there appears room to play with these numbers. Does anyone know of a detailed analysis of a possible Soviet strike on US cities? And how the outcome would be altered by knocking out some of the Soviet birds before they got here? For if we could "get by" with, say, 40 million dead, then the same could be said for the Soviets - and thus perhaps either side COULD get a real "winning" advantage in a first strike. Alas, I bet the information really needed to get this sort of estimate is classified (by either the governments involved or God). Jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 1982 1144-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Nuking LA: assumptions From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL The "Access to Energy" clarification of "SOBER FACTS ..." doesn't help much; according to the 1977 edition of "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" the 5 PSI radius for a 1 megaton bomb is 4.3 Mi.; the area of such a circle is 58 square miles. The 3000 Mi**2 for greater L.A. divided by 58 is 52 bombs, order-of-magnitude smaller than the 438 claimed by Access to Energy. Even with a generous allowance for circle packing, they're way off. Why the difference between this figure (52 bombs) and the ones I just derrived using Herb Lin's formula? Are different assumptions involved? If so, they should be stated if people have them handy. Jim ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************