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