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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: problems with Star Wars #2 (part 1: a side issue)
Message-ID: <5757@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Jul-85 17:46:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5757
Posted: Thu Jul  4 17:46:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 17:46:30 EDT
References: <1197@utcsri.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 49

[Thought I'd never get around to my promised followup, didn't you?
No such luck.]

First, I want to get a side issue out of the way:  linkage of SDI to
offensive strategic weapons.  Then (in the next message) I will discuss 
the central issue of software problems of SDI.

> The response [to a detected attack] may be [activation of defences]
> ... or even the launching of retaliatory
> nuclear weapons; these responses would be automated.

This is a theme that SDI opponents assert repeatedly:  that implementation
of SDI may/will involve automation of the offensive nuclear systems as
well.  There is no logical necessity for this whatsoever.  The *only*
system that needs split-second response is boost-phase interception;
nothing else requires action within seconds.  In particular, the launch
of retaliatory offensive weapons does not require such lightning response.
So there is no requirement that it be coupled to SDI activation.

Also, such a coupling would fly in the face of forty years of practice
and policy on the activation of nuclear weapons.  One hears scare stories
about accidents causing nuclear alerts, with the implication that the
world was on the hair-trigger edge of war.  Nonsense.  False alarms in
warning systems are much more common than people realize, and even in
the well-publicized cases, there was never any serious chance of war.
This is precisely *because* nobody takes the hardware's word for it.
Nor, for that matter, any single human being's word for it.  This policy
is not an accident.  There are elaborate safeguards around strategic
nuclear weapons, aimed at making *certain* that no irrevocable action
occurs without positive confirmation that an attack is in progress.
(Something that bothers me is the "peace movement"'s serious ignorance of
the nature of the systems they criticize.)  Much of the recent uproar
about "launch on warning" is because a launch-on-warning policy would
require seriously weakening the "positive confirmation" criteria.  (Note
that "launch on warning" does *not* inherently imply automatic launch,
despite some of the more hysterical reports.)  I emphasize that the
positive-confirmation rule and the multiple precautions are not an
accident, but the direct result of major policy decisions which will
not be lightly overturned.  So automatic initiation of offensive weapons,
definitely a scary thought, is not only unnecessary but would be a total
about-face from long-entrenched fundamental policy.

And in any case, the issue of automatic initiation of offensive weapons
has little or nothing to do with SDI deployment.  The two policy issues
are quite independent, although if both were adopted their implementations
might (repeat, *might*) share some hardware.  Let us not confuse the two.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry