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From: matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The real issue about nuclear weapons-Reply to Robin Roberts
Message-ID: <216@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 20:10:08 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.216
Posted: Sat Dec 15 20:10:08 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 02:46:51 EST
References: <29200165@uiucdcs.UUCP> <333@ut-sally.UUCP>  <> <223@ttidcb.UUCP> <1617@drutx.UUCP>
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 47

> Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would
> be a human catastrophe unknown in the entire hisory of mankind.

> There are more than
> 50,000 nuclear weapons with a 13,000 megaton yield in the arsenals
> of the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R, no to mention other nuclear powers. 
> There are enough weapons to oblitheate a million hiroshimas.

True, but nearly irrelevant.  Most of the nuclear weapons in this world
are of a tactical nature -- we use nukes for everything from torpedo
warheads to land mines.  The vast majority would not be used in a nuclear
war, for lack of time, delivery systems, or because they were destroyed in
an initial exchange. Barring a planned, massive attack, I doubt that 
more than a couple thousand warheads would go off (like the entire Minuteman
arsenal).
 
> So you can see that nuclear war is a horror that only fools think
> can be survived by alarge proportion of mankind.  Many scientists
> think that a such a srain on the environment would cause mankind to
> cease to exist and become just a dim dim memory.
> 
>                              S. Freeman
> 
>     "Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice."
>                                                  -Dante, The Inferno

 So what's a large proportion?  The southern hemisphere will get off pretty
easy -- a year of crop failure and famine, high rates of disease, the
world economy destroyed and political conflict rife -- all in all, not much
different from post-plague Europe.  There won't be life in Kansas for a while,
but the natives of South America, Australia, etc. *will* survive.  As for
your "Many scientists," I would ask them this: how will nuclear war kill
the dictator of Indonesia? The nuclear winter? He's got a lot of oil, and
there's enough food in Jakarta's grocery stores to last him a while.  
Remember, he's got a the standard police-state army to make sure that the 
urban mobs don't keep him from necessary resources. The destruction of the 
ozone?  All the dust that's keeping the sun from coming out will also keep
ultra-violet rays from frying his highness's skin.  Besides, most studies
show that the effect would be short-lived in the Southern Hemisphere, esp.
when the destruction of ozone-damaging industry is considered.  Plagues
will be a problem, but the corpses of North America are far away, and 
medicine has advanced since 1348, especially for people like this dictator
who can pay for the best.  So how is nuclear war going to keep this man
from re-populating the planet?

				James Matthews
				matthews@harvard