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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Strategic Arms (reply to Tim Sevener) and Apologia
Message-ID: <328@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Sep-84 12:22:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.328
Posted: Wed Sep 26 12:22:13 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Oct-84 03:22:45 EDT
References: <204@tekigm.UUCP>, <1822@ucbvax.ARPA> <493@tty3b.UUCP> <1889@ucbvax.ARPA>, <222@whuxl.UUCP> <1983@randvax.UUCP> <238@whuxl.UUCP>Wed, 26-Sep-84 09:22:13 PDT
Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics
Lines: 20

medin@ucbarpa asks:

>Even if the Soviet's would
>have signed a treaty banning mirv's, I'd like to point out one
>very important point:  How do you verify that a missile isnt mirv'ed?

Our intelligence services claim to be able to count Soviet warheads
and Soviet launchers, as both capabilities are necessary for
any strategic treaty. If the number of warheads substantially exceeds
the number of launchers, one may safely conclude that MIRVing has
taken place. Thus MIRVing can be checked.

What can't be checked is the difference between MIRVing (where the
warheads are independently targetable even though on a single
launcher) and MARVing (where they aren't). Thus, it it necessary to
assume all launchers with multiple warheads are indeed MIRVed when
negotiating strategic treaties. 

					David Rubin
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david