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From: myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Jeff Myers)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The real issue about nuclear weapons
Message-ID: <514@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 14:25:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.514
Posted: Sun Dec  2 14:25:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Dec-84 00:54:14 EST
References: <29200165@uiucdcs.UUCP> <29200167@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 38

> 
> Now it's up to the freeze proponents.  You need to show why a nuclear
> freeze would be better at preventing nuclear war than the "build-down"
> approach.  I wish you luck; I believe you will find that *demonstrating*
> the advantages of a freeze is more difficult than *assuming* them.
> 
> Scott Renner
> {pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!renner

What advantage does build-down have over tear-down?  Keeps the companies
building bombs happy, I s'pose.

Current weapons have decent accuracy and tremendous destructive capability.
If you are interested in reducing nuclear weapons to a "safe" level, why take
the "two steps forward, one step back" approach?

Admittedly, a freeze followed by a tear-down would need to keep in
consideration the fact that weapons may simply get old.  This might be taken
care of by building weapons identical to the ones wearing out.  Introducing
physically smaller, more accurate weaponry will hardly help reduce tensions.

However, it may come to light after a negotiated freeze that some kind of new
weapons system does have stability enhancing effects.  In that case, an
exception to the freeze could be negotiated if both sides developed such a
weapon in cooperation.  This scenario seems rather unlikely, in my opinion.
It would be better if we collaborated on growing food more efficiently, or
setting up a lunar colony.

Now it's up to the build-down proponents.  How is building weapons which
are better at destroying things going to make the world safer?  How does
building newer, better weapons aid stability?

-- 
Jeff Myers				The views above may or may not
University of Wisconsin-Madison		reflect the views of my employers.
Madison Academic Computing Center
ARPA: uwmacc!myers@wisc-rsch.arpa
uucp: ..!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!myers