From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!npois!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #149 Article-I.D.: ucb.1621 Posted: Wed Jul 28 01:21:48 1982 Received: Mon Aug 2 04:32:23 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Wed Jul 28 01:11:17 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 149 Today's Topics: Effects of Nuclear War The Concept of a Palestinian state Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #148 luosy speling ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 July 1982 04:27-EDT From: Robert Elton MaasSubject: Effects of Nuclear War / claimed refutation of Caldicott The first point is nonsense. If you launch your missiles so that they all strike their targets simultaneously, there will be no problem with debris from Northern targets impacting still-in-flight missiles headed for Southern targets. Since explosions everywhere at the same time (except for one EMP strike at the earliest possible moment) is optimum for surprize and shock value, there's not much reason for using the scenerio that author is trying to claim will have the problem, thus it's a straw man in my opinion. (Of course if that author has top secret military info about what schedule the USSR or the USA actually will use in case of war, I'll stand corrected; does he?) ------------------------------ Date: 27 July 1982 05:15-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Effects of Nuclear War Yes indeed, weapons capable of killing 56 billion people won't actually kill that number because there aren't that many around to kill. But you fail to say how many will actualy be killed from direct extrapolation. The simplest method is to assume the law of diminishing returns follows simple independent probability. Thus a bomb capable by itself of killing .01% of the population will leave 99.99% of the population alive. The next bomb will kill .01% of the survivors of the first bomb, leaving 99.99% of the initial survivors, i.e. (99.99)^2 % of the original population. With n bombs, you have (99.99)^n alive, i.e. 1-(99.99)^n killed. For small values of n, this is approximately linear, and this means (work it out mathematically) that you get essentially the same result no matter how small you quantize the bomb size providing you quantize it much smaller than 100% kill (thus 1% or .1% or .01% etc. are all close enough). The simplest is to take the infitesimal. Then linear-extrapolation overkill of k (k=1 means enough to kill everyone by linear extrapolation, k=14 is the figure extrapolated from Hiroshima assuming 4 billion people and 10 gigatons) yields a true overkill of LIMIT(1-(1-K/N)^N) = 1-exp(-k) n->inf Putting in k=14 we get a true overkill of .999999166, i.e. a survival rate of .00000083, i.e. out of 4 billion living now only 3320 people in the world will be alive right after the bombs drop, and those 3k people scattered randomly around the world will have to survive all the other hazards that come3k people scattered randomly around the world will have to survive all the other hazards that come later (UV, no food, no medical services, loneliness, chemical&biological war, etc.). I'm not saying it'll be that bad, because the bombs are targeted for the northern hemisphere, and there are more than 3320 people living in Australia. But direct extrapolation of overkill, taking into account diminishing returns, and assuming totally random targeting on population centers, gives that figure. I don't count on being one of those lucky 3k initial survivors. ---- There's a children's joke about if a plane flying from Chicago to LA crashes right on the corner between Arizona/NM/Utah/Colorado, where do they bury the survivors. In the case of nuclear war, the "survivors", those who don't get killed immediately, will die soon enough, but won't be buried. Who'll be there to bury them? ---- Those who follow this digest have seen my diminising-return formula before, but since DIETZ criticized the linear extrapolation without offering anything to replace it, and since DIETZ's message gave a particular figure for overkill, I decided to repeat my formula with a better explanation from the original I gave. P.s. I think the population is now 4.5 E9. that gives the linear overkill as k = 56/4.5 = 12.44, so true overkill is .999996044, so survival is .0000039, so number of survivors is 17803. I still don't think I'll be one of them, do you? ------------------------------ Date: 27 July 1982 05:24-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Effects of Nuclear War "Modern cities have little to burn" is a big big lie!! It's amazing how many people die in a simple hotel fire because the furnishings inside the steel&concrete&glass building are made of plastic and other combustable materials. There's much much that can burn in a modern city, steel&concrete&glass buildings notwithstanding. With the concrete and glass shattered by the initial shock wave, there'd be no firewalls to impede spread of fire and all the sprinkler systems would be inoperative. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jul 82 13:50:49 EDT (Mon) From: Steve Bellovin Subject: demilitarized Palestinian state Well, we can all see how effective the Japanese constitutional guarantee is -- it seems to serve mostly as a political excuse when the U.S. asks them to spend more on defense than they're already doing. As for your proposal itself, I don't think anyone would buy it (which may, of course, mean that it's fair). Israel would reject it because of the danger of terrorism, and because it would be difficult to verify and/or enforce -- they don't have any spy satellites, and the rest of the world, including the U.S., has never accepted Israel's pre-emptive strikes as legitimate self-defense. The Palestinians will not accept accept being defenseless because they won't trust Israel, nor will they trust Jordan, Syria, or Iraq. (I know Sria and Iraq don't border the West Bank directly, but they're not that far away.) There have been far too many wars in the area among former allies; I assume that the readers of this list don't need a compendium. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jul 1982 0931-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: Palestinian state on the West Bank [From: Zigurd R. Mednieks ] As is increasingly apperant, the majority of Palestineans are moderates that... would probably be more than content with a Gaza/West Bank state, even with lots of strings attached, like no heavy arms. But what about the fanatics who will continue to mount terrorist attacks against Israel? I agree that nothing can be done to prevent terrorist activities with anti-air missiles, mortars, etc. But consider; this is happening already anyway. However, under current circumstances, terrorist actions seem to generate support among moderate Palestinians - terrorist action ==> Israeli retaliation ==> more Palestinians converted to the radical cause, and the cycle repeats. It seems to me that the establishment of a disarmed state would cut out the most of the "moral imperative" (from the Palestinian point of view) for terrorist action. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jul 1982 0940-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: Re: demilitarized Palestinian state [From: Steve Bellovin ] As for your proposal itself, I don't think anyone would buy it. Israel would reject it because of the danger of terrorism, and because it would be difficult to verify and/or enforce -- they don't have any spy satellites, and the rest of the world, including the U.S., has never accepted Israel's pre-emptive strikes as legitimate self-defense. The Palestinians will not accept accept being defenseless because they won't trust Israel, nor will they trust Jordan, Syria, or Iraq. My proposal has flaws in it; nevertheless, isn't it better than the current status quo? Israel faces terrorism NOW; what would be different? The U.S. could sell them spy satellites, and a treaty or a national charter could specifically indicate Israel's right to intervene. Militarily, they could be no threat to other Arab countries. Indeed, would Israel stand idly by if Jordan attacked the Palestinian state on the West Bank? I suspect they would attempt to defend the Palestinian state! ------------------------------ Date: 27 July 1982 18:36-EDT From: Zigurd R. Mednieks Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #148 luosy speling Mea culpa! I shall practice typing "e"s followed by "a"s long into the nig