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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Strategic Arms (reply to Tim Sevener) and Apologia
Message-ID: <238@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Sep-84 08:50:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.238
Posted: Wed Sep 19 08:50:40 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 09:00:05 EDT
References: <204@tekigm.UUCP>, <1822@ucbvax.ARPA> <493@tty3b.UUCP> <1889@ucbvax.ARPA>, <222@whuxl.UUCP> <1983@randvax.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs
Lines: 68

>     >for the effects of an allout nuclear attack by the US submarine
>     >strategic missile force.  First off, let me point out that a single
>     >Polaris submarine has enough warheads to destroy over 100 Soviet cities.
> 
>     OK...first of all, a `Polaris' submarine exists only in a scrapyard
>     today...there is not a single Polaris missile in the US arsenal...but
>     this is strictly a technical quibble...a Poseidon submarine, however,
>     does carry 16 missiles with more than one hundred total warheads
>     aboard...each of these warheads ~40 kilotons, by FAR the smallest
>     strategic weapons in the world today...it would take anywhere from
>     six to twenty of these weapons, most likely, to destroy any city worth
>     hitting in the first place.
     
      I have to admit that your technical quibble is correct.
      They are Poseidon not Polaris submarines.  My essential
      point is merely backed up by your factual details.  Your conclusions
      however are questionable.  So these warheads are "only" 40 kilotons-
      big deal, right?  The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was "only" 13
      kilotons.  That one bomb seemed to do quite an effective job on
      Hiroshima as I recall.  I am sure thousands of these bombs wouldn't
      phase the Russians a bit.

> 
> 
> 
>     >That the Soviet population could survive an assault by literally
>     >thousands of nuclear warheads is ludicrous.
> 
>     No more ludicrous than anything else I see in this posting.
> 
> 					--- das

I think the idea that the Soviets or anyone could survive a nuclear
war is a necessary fantasy for people unwilling to face the likelihood
of human extinction in an allout nuclear war.  Obviously we can never
be absolutely certain what would happen---but I think we cannot afford
to find out.  I also think that people who advocate more and more nuclear
weapons are militarists--they relentlessly seek military and technical
solutions to the political problem of war.  We have been pursuing such solutions
for 40 years--have they made us any safer? Is there any way such first-strike
weapons as the MX missile CAN make us safer?  I do not think so.
Yes, I think that Soviet MIRV capabilities threaten our strategic arsenal
and moreover our lives.  Will building more arms stop them?
It never has.  We had the chance to stop Soviet MIRV capabilities during
the SALT talks in the early 70's.  But just as Reagan and the militarists
are spreading nuclear conflict to space "because we are ahead", so back then
Nixon and Kissinger refused to include MIRVed weapons in the SALT accords.
At that time we were ahead in MIRVed missiles, and the Soviets were eager
to include MIRVed weapons in an agreement.  We could have stopped the
Soviets from developing MIRVed weapons then--with an arms agreement.
We didn't.  We are now that much more in danger.
I do not pretend to know every intricacy of nuclear weaponry--I
think such technical arguments often obscure the fundamental point--
nuclear war threatens the human race--the nuclear arms race has brought
us closer not further from nuclear war--no weapon ever deployed by the US
has ever stopped the Soviets from deploying more nuclear weapons.
The only way to prevent nuclear war AND any Soviet threat
to the US is to stop the arms race for the
safety of both sides, and to enact bilateral verifiable treaties to do so.
To continue the search for purely military and technical solutions
to the political problem of preventing nuclear war is militaristic.
If you don't wish to be called a "militarist" then don't support
militaristic solutions to the nuclear problem.
Tim Sevener
Bell Labs, Whippany
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