From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: Arms-Discussion Digest V0 #154 Article-I.D.: ucb.1689 Posted: Tue Aug 3 03:59:25 1982 Received: Wed Aug 4 01:12:44 1982 >From HGA@MIT-MC Tue Aug 3 03:54:02 1982 Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: Clayton vs. Caldicott ZRM and security ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 August 1982 18:16-EDT From: Robert Elton MaasSubject: Clayton vs. Caldicott I saw that Sci.Am. article on meltdown vs. bomb vs. bomb-on-reactor too. My reaction was that a single bomb on a reactor is much worse than a single bomb elsewhere, so if you're going to try to hit civilian targets (cities) you should certainly target all the reactors in preference to random targets, and with 10k warheads you can assume the 20 or so reactors will ALL surely be targeted with enough redundancy to assume ALL will be vaporized. However in the total damage done by allthe bombs, the additional damage due to reactors being vaporized will be perhaps 10% (in any case some small fraction) extra, so the chance of reactors being targeted in a nuclear war is NOT a reason to avoid building reactors in the first place. Of course if we had 1000 reactors, the amount of enhancement of damage from a nuclear war (again assuming all reactors are targeted) would be significant compared to other nuclear-war damage. Thus I would NOT suggest building 1000 nuclear reactors until we have first solved the problem of nuclear war. But I would think 100 reactors would be fine. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1982 13:13:02-PDT From: Christopher Williams Subject: ZRM and security [ Subject: Mutant germs & Sci-Fi] My own prediction is that the only way that the current nuclear threat will be diminished will be through the developement of effective defense against ICBMs. This will relegate ICBMs to being terror weapons and therefore largely useless to the superpowers. Hmm, I thought that anti-ICBM weapons were destabilizing. Building ABM's or killer satellites will diminish the nuclear threat to us, but increases the threat to the Russians. Panic and uneasiness there would be similar to feelings here if the Russians were to build a defense system. In a worst case, we would increase the threat to ourselves through a defense system. Even if they didn't go to launch-on-slightest-hint-of-warning, there would be a temptation to build more ICBM's to regain their kill rate, or to build new weapons to defeat our defenses. To quell this temptation, we would have to very convincingly drop our current first strike tendencies in order to show that we were being purely defensive, and not out to defend against a retaliatory strike. I don't know if you implied all this in your statement, but on the surface it seemed not. Obviously, part of my scenario involves making the Russians believe we've become passive and isolationist. Seeing as how we'd never expect it of them, I see no reason for them to believe us. We would then be left in a passive position with the Russians still going full tilt in arms production. This would probably lead to coup by more conservative, patriotic people of power who never wanted to go along with disarmament in the first place, and the whole thing would go down the tubes. [hyperbole intended] One of the main problems in arms talks always seems to be one of verification. Would it be possible for the Russians to reasonably determine that we had decimated our first strike force? If so, they might just get over their distrust of us, in which case, a defense system with accompanying disarmament would actually get us out of the current race. It's just a matter of whether we want to give up our position of policeman, protecting the rights of friendly dictators and democracies everywhere. (Oh boy, are the flames going to hit the fan!) Chris ------------------------------ End of Arms-D Digest ********************