Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdahl!amdcad!military 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 Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM Lines: 31 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.