From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #137 Article-I.D.: ucb.1483 Posted: Wed Jul 7 23:41:05 1982 Received: Fri Jul 9 01:14:58 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Wed Jul 7 23:23:51 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 137 Today's Topics: More heat than light Recommissioned battleships Nuking LA Utility of Big Stuff Self-inflicted EMP Of mice & men... Light as opposed to heat Security of the USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Jul 1982 0025-PDT From: Jim McGrathSubject: Re: More heat than light To: CAULKINS at USC-ECL I call a spade a spade. I (and others) have repeatedly demostrated that, with our current low level of conventional forces, that we would have to use nuclear weapons, or threaten their use, if confronted by a major Soviet conventional push (often situated in Europe). Thus to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons IS either stupid (since it involves ignoring the facts) or dishonest (since it implies we are lying to our allies when we promise to defend them, or to our people when we make that pledge). Moreover, this situation is an OBVIOUS one - ie it does not require that we wait for a confrontation, since any rational observer could deduce these facts from the available evidence. Thus my point was and is perfectly valid - unless someone can refute it. Your response didn't refute MY argument - it knocked down a strawman of your own construction. While misunderstandings of another's positions are perfectly possible, it is difficult to believe that you could misunderstand my earlier message, which was plainly written AND QUOTED IN YOUR MESSAGE. Unless of course you had not read my message. Note: the use of the term "stupid" is proper and valid when applied to things WHICH ARE (by demostration) stupid. It is improper and invalid when applied to statements which one has not even attempted to refute, and thus demostrate to be stupid. Jim ------------------------------ Date: Tue Jun 29 17:29:15 1982 From: decvax!utzoo!henry at Berkeley Subject: recommissioned battleships Saw a news item, I think in *Flight International*, claiming that the US Navy is having problems with the plans to recommission the four Iowa-class battleships still in mothballs. The trouble is, when the big 16-inch guns fire, the recoil jolts the whole ship severely. It seems that modern missiles and electronic systems do not *like* being slammed around like this! No word on exactly what is to be done about this small problem... ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1982 06:02-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Nuking LA I think it's time to apply the 90/20 rule. You can often get 90% of the job done for 20% of the effort. Instead of trying to vaporize 100% of Los Angeles, let's try to vaporize only that portion which contains 90% of its population, letting firestorm and lack of public services (like food water electricity and highways) present a slow death to most of the rest. Question: how many one-megaton bombs will it take to kill 90% of the population of LA virtually instantly? (My crude guess: 30; but let's have some good estimates.) ------------------------------ Date: 2 July 1982 06:16-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: 100% vs 95% kill By the way, I think the idea of killing 100% of Los Angeles is a straw man that is an example of how to lie with statistics. Of course you can't destroy 100% of Los Angeles with any plausable number of weapons. But you can destroy 90% with just a few and 95% with a few more and 99% with a whole bunch, and you don't give a damn if you destroy the last one percent because that last one percent won't be capable of waging war, it'll be isolated pockets of people unable to find each other or do much of anything. But the same goes for any other 100% task. Finding the very last bug in a program or curing the very last case of Bubonic plague, or any other 100% task, is nigh imposible, and it's really dishonest to set it up as a straw man and then argue how difficult it is to accomplish the 100% task. If Access to Energy really did argue in that way (I cancelled my subscription last year thus didn't see the article), then I think it did a disservice to its readership. In any case, let's not have any more 100% straw men in this ARMS-DISCUSSION, ok? ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 82 11:37:17-EDT (Fri) From: Earl Weaver (VLD/VMB) Subject: Utility of Big Stuff Once I was at an aircraft survivability workshop in which the discussion turned to which was better--a lot of little, fast, cheap attack aircraft, or a few BETTER, more expensive ones. [I'll not get into what people consider BETTER other that a generalization of more weapons, greater bombload, MUCH more sophisticated electronics (jammers, radar deceivers, etc.)] The first better, above, means survivable--able to complete the mission (delivering its arms load accurately) and keep doing it mission after mis- sion. 'Survivable' has the following implications: 1. Not be seen (detected). [In the case of aircraft, the aircraft should have 'minimum' radar reflectance, IR signature, no glint, etc., etc.] If seen, then 2. Not get hit. [Evasive tactics, jammers, chaff, flares, radar deception, etc., etc.] But if hit, then 3. Not get killed (killed in the sense of mission abort and return to base without crash). [Redundant systems, self sealing fuel cells, fly-by-wire reprogramming, etc., etc.] But if damaged, then 4. Be fixable. Unfortunately survivability costs $$$$ and weight. Against plain bullets it means, mainly, maneuverabilty. But against today's and tomorrow's (don't forget, the military likes to think that aircraft can be used for the next 20+ years) sophisticated weapons it takes bunches of electron- ics, redundancy, and beef-up structures. Since it costs so much to be survivable, it is logical to add as much armament as possible. Thus larger and larger aircraft. As anyone really been up close to an F-18? Those things are really huge! Anyway, the discussion came to no conclusion since there were so many variables. I suppose that IF one could decide that an aircraft was to be applied to a certain mis- sion then one could design accordingly. But, it seems that the military is always trying to make it do a little more (presumably in the interest of saving money by not having an additional aircraft in the inventory), thus the rules change during development. [Sometimes it is not the military's decision; Congress sometimes dictates what a piece of materiel should do.] Someone said that conceptually, it would be attractive to consider the US Air Force could have one really terrific, expensive monster as its whole force. One craft that never really got close to the fighting, but that could sit back and cruise for days looking things over then sending in brilliant munitions from far away to do the damage to the enemy. Of course the answer lies somewhere between the cheapie and the behemoth, but where? ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 2 July 1982 10:46-PDT From: KING at KESTREL Subject: Self-inflicted EMP The proposed ABM system of the mid-1970's would have intercepted hostile nuclear warheads with nuclear warheads of its own. How was it planned to avoid EMP'ing ourselves to death with our own ABM system? Dick ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1982 10:32:22-PDT From: cbosg!nscs!jpj at Berkeley Subject: Re: Of mice & men... From: Jim McGrath Subject: Of Mice and Men From: Jim Jenal The damning aspect of all of this is that *we* chose this course. To speak of the realities of life (ie, the need for sovereignty and its defense) as immutables is a fallacy. People established the order of the world. People *can* re-order the world into something other than a self- destructive entity. Pride goeth before the fall... Quite frankly, I believe you are wrong. Like it or not, we are not gods. There are many limitations on human actions which we cannot, as yet, overcome. I am able to accept the fact that none of us are gods - in fact I never implied anything like that; actually, my very point was that *people* are responsible for the present state of the world! Somehow you missed my point. I shall stive for greater clarity in the future. There is poverty in this world. Our present resources are not adequate to serve the population of this planet for any significant number of years. While I certainly agree that there is plenty of poverty in the world today, I *do not* agree that the present resources of this planet are not adequate to meet current human *needs*. Note that the operative word here is NEEDS, not WANTS. Obviously we should therefore try to increase our knowledge and control. But in the meantime there ARE *realities* that we must respect - else our search for a better way to live may be cut off - permanently. From: jpj THERE IS NO PRINCIPLE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, THAT JUSTIFIES THE POSSIBLE EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY IN ITS DEFENSE. Yes there is - the principle of survival of humanity, and all that that entails. How's that again? Are you disagreeing w/what I said? If so, I miss the distinction. Luckily this principle does not come into play in full force. That is to say, we will not destroy humanity, even in the worse case - only significant parts of it. Given that ANY course of action, including inaction, entails similar risks, all we can do is try to make the best of things and act as intelligently as we can (which is not nearly enough, but what else can mere mortals do?) Alas, you cannot give me any guarantees that what you claim (ie, that we will only destroy *part* of Humanity) is true. Quite frankly, you do not know. Further, as I have already stated on this list, to assume that in any major exchange the only weapons used would be *nuclear* is dangerously naive. Worse yet, I find you somewhat cavilier attitude re: the destruction of "...significant parts of" Humanity somewhat nauseating. What do you use for morals? By what standard do you judge acceptable conduct? I agree that we must try to make the best of things and act as intelligently as we can - which may *indeed* be not well enough - I just don't believe that supporting the building of more and more weapons of mass destruction is an *intelligent* response. Cheers... Jim Jenal ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 1982 0810-PDT From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL Subject: Light as opposed to heat (enter meta discussion mode) Any discussion/argument involves abstractions from the real world; these abstractions allow reasonably brief discussion of matters which are almost always quite complex. Even at the abstraction level binary choices are rare, and in the real world they are even less common. The choice of abstractions made fits the bias of the chooser; much dispute arises from unspoken or even unconcious differences between the abstractions of the parties to the dispute. In all of the discussions in which I participate it is legitimate to shift abstraction context in mounting opposing arguments. It is desirable to make the shift explicit, but I and I suspect others are not scrupulous about this. The making explicit has the undesirable side effect of lengthening messages. I read all of ARMS-D, and read with special care messages relating to topics of ineterst to me; I use even more care in reading messages I'm commenting on or comments on my messages. I don't object to McGrath calling a spade a spade; I do object to terms like 'stupid' which apply to people and not ideas. McGrath's messages are heavily ad hominem in that they make accusations about the opponent's conduct and motives rather than address the ideas advanced. I believe this sort of thing contributes nothing toward clarifying the ideas advanced; I also find it personally offensive to have to wade through arrogant stuff like: "Unless of course you had not read my message." and "any rational observer could deduce these facts from the available evidence" to get to any real content. I would be very interested in (hopefully brief) comments from uninvolved parties about these matters. (leave meta discussion mode) Specific comments on McGrath's assertions: I (and others) have repeatedly demostrated that, with our current low level of conventional forces, that we would have to use nuclear weapons, or threaten their use, if confronted by a major Soviet conventional push (often situated in Europe). I have seen no valid argument (let alone a demonstration) on ARMS-D or anywhere else that establishes nuclear weapons as desirable and necessary counters to Soviet conventional strength in Europe. There are a number of arguments against this policy; here are two I find persuasive: 1) The immense and unknown risks of crossing the nuclear barrier. Destroying Europe in order to save it seems counterproductive. 2) Strategic asymmetry. Deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe reduces Soviet warning time of an attack on Moscow to 6 minutes; nothing they do with SS-20s poses an equivalent threat to Washington or similar US targets. If they go to Launch-On-Warning as they well might in such a situation, nuclear deterrent stability is much reduced. ------------------------------ Date: Mon Jul 5 19:27:41 1982 From: decvax!watmath!bstempleton at Berkeley Subject: Security of the USA I doubt I will be the only Canadian to respond on this issue... I am quite surprised to see some Americans seriously worried about our country as a threat to US security. You probably know how linked our military systems already are. Each year a Canadian and American officer take turns at being Commander and Second in Command of NORAD. Aside from this I have to worry about the comment that said you have the best system of government around and should spread it. This is the most dangerous form of self-deception I know of. The Soviets and many others claim the same thing. While it is true that the American system is admirable, especially for its time of creation, it is far from ideal. Countries such as Canada are every bit as free and advanced as the USA. One of the principles of the American constitution was freedom for people to choose their government. Don't even THINK of violating it. ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************