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From: GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU (Clifford Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Future of the military
Message-ID: <27555@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 29 Sep 89 09:01:21 GMT
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Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com



From: "Clifford Johnson" 
	[ This is NOT arms-d, but in the interest of fairness
	  I'm posting this response.  Further discussion 
	  along this branch should be conducted by e-mail, please.  --CDR]

In article <27498@amdcad.AMD.COM>,
oravax!richard@wrath.cs.cornell.edu (Richard Alan Platek) writes:
>In any case, as long as there are
>Soviet nuclear ICBMs pointed at my home town I prefer to work on SDI.

I agree that this is the obvious number one US/USSR military
confrontation problem.   It was touched on in Crowe's retirement
interview for the Seattle Times on Sept. 2, 1989.  Crowe stated
that the biggest military change in his lifetime was the switch
in rules of engagement that now meant the U.S. would fire first,
even at risk to others.  He said (in the naval context) missiles
had brought this change about, due to the risk of being bust by a
single shot.

Accordingly, it seems to me that virtually nothing has happened
to offset the threat of superpower confrontation until the ICBM
launch crews are off their present two-minute launch readiness
alerts.  I think the danger of this situation is worsened by its
being overlooked in the euphoria of glasnost, especially as
eliminating the hair-trigger is not even on the strategic arms
limitation agenda.  Moreover, present plans are to reduce ICBM
launch response to under a minute, as the Rapid Execution And
Combat Targeting system is being designed to computerize the
launch code authentication presently performed by the crews.