From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #121 Article-I.D.: ucb.1365 Posted: Wed Jun 16 00:02:26 1982 Received: Fri Jun 18 03:29:49 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Tue Jun 15 23:55:36 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 121 Today's Topics: Ships vs Planes Soviet fronts Freeze arguments Military literacy Kilofeet Bilateral nuclear arms freeze Alleged communist fronts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jun 1982 2330-PDT From: Herb LinSubject: Ships vs Planes [From: Jim McGrath ] 15 or so Argentinian planes were lost for every British ship sunk. Thus the true cost to Argentinia is over $100 million a ship - not such a bargain after all... Given the strength of the attacking planes and the badly equiped British fleet.., the outcome of the Falklands conflict seems to neither support nor condemn surface ships. I tend to agree with JPM (how about that!!). To me, the lesson seems to be that cheap **weapons** can destroy expensive ships. Argentina was severely handicapped at long range; consider what they might have been able to do with some Harrier jets + Exocet missiles based in the Falklands, or some fast hydroplane or hydrofoil boats there similarly equipped. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jun 1982 2337-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: Soviet fronts.. [From: Zigurd R. Mednieks ] Do any of the pacifists out there know what the World Peace Council is? The U.S. Peace Council? The American Friends Service Committee? The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom? If, with names like these you think they must be Soviet fronts, you are right. The American Friends Service Committee?? From the Quakers? Please share your source for this information..... Also, please define what you mean by a "Soviet front". Accepting money from them? Using Soviet agents? Blindly following Moscow's line? (stress on the "blindly") That said, I also believe some of these are Soviet fronts; I have had some interaction with the US Peace Council, and they certainly seem to me to be Soviet dupes. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jun 1982 2349-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: freeze arguments... [From: Jim McGrath ] Just heard a perfectly idiotic debate on this freeze. The proponent simply ignored the most powerful argument of the opponent, namely that such a freeze would not freeze non-nuclear capability to attack subs or bombers. If you neutralize our subs and bombers, then the US is quite INFERIOR to the Soviets, even if we made similar advances (since they rely primarily on land based missiles). Once again, I am really amazed with the capacity of some folks (most notably the left) to adopt policies that so contradict one another. I concur that mutual advances in AA/ASW warfare would benefit the Soviets asymmetrically. However, not freezing non-nuclear capability to do AA/ASW warfare is not the same thing as predicting that the Soviets (or the US) will be \\able// to conduct effective strategic AA/ASW warfare. In my view, the odds that good strategic AA/ASW warfare will in fact be developed is much much smaller than the risk that we will build destabilizing systems (such as MX and Trident II and Pershing II and ALCM and...) that will \\really// leave us in the soup. In other words, I do acknowledge some risk to the freeze. The risk of NOT adopting the freeze seems to me to be much greater. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 0006-PDT From: Herb Lin Subject: military literacy [From: Jim McGrath ] ... The real problem I have with the "peace movement" is that they do not take war SERIOUSLY. That is, they do not bother to examine war in a clear headed and rational way - they simply react in a knee jerk manner... Thus people start to judge war on grounds that it CANNOT be judged upon.... Likewise, an abstract philosophical approach to war is not correct since it ignores vital political, economic, sociological, psychological, and technical components. As much as I find myself in disagreement with Jim McGrath, on this issue I agree with him entirely. This is also my primary trouble with the peace movement - they are unwilling to grapple with the issues that conflict raises. Indeed, this is what make them lose credibility in most substantive discussions. Part of the solution is to have good military education for the lay citizenship, just as many people desire a sound scientific education for the common folk. If people are to be responsible citizens, then they must have access to a broad base of knowledge and experience. Right on. Let me issue a call to all those on ARMS-D: What would you propose to include in "military literacy"? What should every informed citizen know about war and its conduct in a nuclear age? Realize that they can't be specialists who conduct debate at the high (ha!!) level which we all conduct debate. Just Jim suggests, we believe that scientific literacy is important, and we construct a variety of schemes to facilitate it. However, note that there is substantial disagreement about what the components of scientific literacy are, e.g., should scientific literacy refer to knowledge about current scientific issues, or about the nature of science as a discipline, or... The list goes on. Just clarifying some of the issues of agreement and disagreement about the components of "military literacy" would be tremendously helpful to both hawk and dove positions. How about it? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 82 9:53:05-EDT (Tue) From: Earl Weaver (VLD/VMB) Subject: kilofeet Now I know why I sometimes have a hard time understanding some of the discussions. I always thought that 1000 yards were 3000 feet, not 2970 feet.... Would somebody care to explain where that figure of 2.97 kilofeet for 1000 yards came from? (Maybe I've been using the wrong conversion factor?) Hooboy.... I guess approximating is OK for some things, but it seems to me that sometimes it blurs the facts. (yeah, I know--picky, picky, picky) ------------------------------ Date: 15 June 1982 10:18-EDT From: Oded Anoaf Feingold Next person to write to arms-d calling for opinions from, or issuing condemnations of, or in any way shape manner or form refers to the "pacifists out there" gets his ass shot off. Thank you very much. Pacifically yours, Oded ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 0822-PDT From: MARCUS at USC-ISIF Subject: Bilateral nuclear arms freeze In response to Jim McGrath: The bilateral nuclear weapons freeze proposal does not claim to solve all of the world's problems with one stroke of the pen. It is obviously only a first step, and not guaranteed "to work". McGrath claims that the freeze could "in the long run", when our subs and bombers are "neutralized" (by non-nuclear means), tempt people to resort to a launch on warning strategy. Well, deployment of MX or Pershing II could quite soon cause the Russians to adopt a launch on warning strategy. McGrath claims that actual reductions are very difficult without a "lot of pressure" (meaning negotiating from a position of unquestioned military superiority, I presume). Well, we HAD unquestioned nuclear superiority for 30 years or so and were there any "actual reductions"? It seems to me that only when both sides are "roughly equivalent" (in the words of General Lew Allen) can actual reductions be negotiated. McGrath claims that in the long run a freeze is destabilizing and would put us "in the soup". Well, our current situation is already dangerously unstable and we are already deeply, deeply in the soup. We've got to try some promising new ideas and not remain paralyzed in our current dogma waiting for some ABSOLUTELY foolproof salvation to come along. Leo ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 12:08:52-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX Subject: alleged communist fronts Claiming that your opponents are Communist dupes is an inappropriate tactic for this or any other digest; it's the same sort of garbage that this country went through in the 50's and should never see again. I am curious as to whether you can produce in support of your claims any evidence that doesn't come from the Heritage Foundation or even further right. I would not be astounded to find that money was being funneled to some of these organizations by the Soviet Union---but I doubt that we have any grounds for complaint in view of those CIA standard practices which have been shown so far. More importantly, at least one of the organizations you attack antedates active Communism; the last time I looked, the American Friends Service Committee was a branch of the Quaker [church] (whose members, you may recall, founded Philadelphia. Of course, there's also the problem that Nixon was raised a Quaker, but the best of organizations have their black sheep). ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 15:01:58-EDT From: zrm at MIT-MC Subject: Pacifism It seems that people out there are getting several subjects very tangled up. One is pacifism. I'm not a pacifist, for reasons basically irrelevent to this discussion, but pacifism itself has nothing to do with (I hope) being involved in Soviet fronts. That, in turn, should have nothing to do with nuclear disarmament. Alas, if people who desire nuclear disarmament are not careful, they will do nothing but discredit and embarass themselves by getting involved with people who want nothing other than to make trouble. On a lot less troublesome level, if people who desire peace fell that they must be pacifists in order to achieve lasting peace, they may be missing the point. Pacifism is pacifism, in time of peace or war. It is a way of thinking that provides reasons for acting -- or not. In a nutshell, the reason I'm not a pacifist is that pacifism may be a good way of enduring tyranny, but pacifism cannot break that tyranny. Also, I guess I should have put "pacifists" in quotes in my message because I doubt that the people who contribute to this list and call themselves pacifists would be ready to submit to the Soviet Union in the interest of peace. As for the goups I named: The World Peace Council has had affiliation with the Soviet Union since its inception. Soviet organisations have quite open affiliation with the World Peace Council. Now take the (rather long) list of organisations in the West affilated with the World Peace Council. If I was to get involved in activism in order to change a Goverment policy I would avoid these outfits if only to avoid getting discredited. "...but if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao..." and all that. Oded: Get my ass shot off? I don't get it at all. Cheers, Zig ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 16:17:38 EDT (Tuesday) From: David Mankins Subject: AFSC Date: 12 June 1982 10:33-EDT From: Zigurd R. Mednieks Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #119 Do any of the pacifists out there know what the World Peace Council is? The U.S. Peace Council? The American Friends Service Committee? The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom? If, with names like these you think they must be Soviet fronts, you are right. These have been around for a while, and there are likeley new organisations without such comically obvious names, but nevertheless, these outfits will be in New York for the marches and ralleys. For your information, the American Friends Services Committee is, as its name implies, the service wing of the American Friends, better known as the Quakers. You want references for this, drop by any Friends' (Quaker) Church, and see who publishes half the pamphlets on the shelves in the foyer. They are kind of an independent Peace Corps--building schools and hospitals, helping people to live independent lives, etc. Living an independent life is the essence of freedom. We should all be such Soviet fronts. While I am most certainly not a pacifist (and someday I'll explain why) If your reasons for not being a pacifist are as carefully reasoned as your first paragraph, don't bother. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1982 21:33:10-PDT From: npois!harpo!ihnss!ihuxv!lambert at Berkeley Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest Regarding the recent article in Arms-Discussion Digest entitled "Fronts", which described Soviet involvement in the weekend disarmament show in NYC: For an excellent article which describes Soviet involvement and organization of the demonstration in NYC, see the editorial in last Friday's Wall Street Journal (6/11/82). I don't remember the title, but the editorial is on the left facing editorial page in the upper right hand corner. --Greg ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************