Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!water!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: problems with Star Wars #2 (part 1: a side issue)
Message-ID: <2165@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 16:46:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2165
Posted: Mon Jul  8 16:46:15 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jul-85 05:44:28 EDT
References: <1197@utcsri.UUCP> <5757@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 45

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

 Sigh...., somehow it's always the peace movement thats portrayed as
 ignorant; don't the seriously ignorant among those who promote a nuclear
 "defense" bother you. 

> 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

 It is my impression that the principal feature of launch on warning is
 that the side being attacked does not wait for actual detonation or
 impact of incoming missiles before ordering retaliation.  This does
 reduce the amount of time available for a decision and if weapons
 delivery systems continue to decrease delivery time (or even appear
 to effectively do so by various forms of stealth) it will necessitate
 either 1. having an impregnable retaliatory system so it is not 
 necessary to launch before impact, or 2. employ automatic launch
 systems since there will not be time for human decision making.


> 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

John Chapman