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From: faustus@ucbvax.UUCP (Wayne Christopher)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Star Wars defense
Message-ID: <1650@ucbvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Aug-84 14:20:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.1650
Posted: Fri Aug 17 14:20:57 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 03:14:19 EDT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 39

From net.genenal:

>    OK, I'll bite.  Why is the Star Wars defense system such a bad idea?
>
>    For 40 years now, we've been treated to a balance of terror, an arms race
> that doesn't stop, where the core concept is best understood by its acronym:
> MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).
> 
>    Suddenly, it becomes well within the realm of technology to do just what
> all the peace-loving people want:  to make nuclear weapons obsolete, without
> replacing them with even WORSE destructive weapons.  Instead of us saying to
> our opponents "If you destroy us, we'll make sure YOU don't survive, either"
> we simply being able to say "Your nuclear attack won't work."

Let's put it this way. Say a race for space weapons begins (the sort
that knock out ICBM's). If we could guarantee that there would be no
time when one power could be immune from attack from the other without
the other having the same immunity, that would be fine. Otherwise we
will eventually arive at a very dangerous position -- we can bomb the
Russians with complete immunity from their bombs. Think of what someone
like Reagan would do in a situation like this. You can be sure that he
wouldn't let such a wonderful opportunity pass by, never mind things
like the loss of innocent life, fallout (which would not be restricted
to the USSR either), and so forth. And I'm sure that the Soviet leaders
would think in exactly the same way. 

More problems -- these satellites are not only restricted to the
destruction of ICBM's, they are also designed to knock out other
satellites. So we have yet another non-global warfare alternative for
escalation of a conventional conflict. If the Russians have this
capability, you can be sure that if a conventional war starts, the first
thing they are going to do is knock out all of our communications
satellites, making us virtually blind and deaf (whereas they are much
less vulnerable to satellite war than we are). This can only lead to
further escalation.

	Wayne