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From: david@randvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Nuclear Winter and Nuclear Freeze (second try)
Message-ID: <1854@randvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Jul-84 11:28:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: randvax.1854
Posted: Thu Jul 26 11:28:07 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 21:47:09 EDT
References: <650@teltone.UUCP>
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 111

----------

    >For those who haven't heard of it, the "Nuclear Winter" is the
    >months-long period of subfreezing weather that would follow a
    >nuclear exchange.

    >That being the case, why should we continue to produce nuclear
    >warheads?  If 800 or 1000 going off would kill us all anyway,
    >why do we have 10,000?  Why are we wasting our tax dollars
    >paying a bunch of our most intelligent people to try and "improve"
    >weapons design?

    >The nuclear freeze movement has made a point of calling for a
    >"mutual and verifiable" nuclear freeze, lest the hawks cry
    >"Unilateral disarmament!"  This doesn't make sense to me.  How
    >can any nation having the power to destroy all human life be
    >called "disarmed"?

    >Can someone explain this to me?

    >....tektronix!uw-beaver!teltone!mark

    Sure, I'll give a try...

    First of all, nuclear winter is NOT a fact, or even an unambiguously
    accurate theory, like general or special relativity...it is a
    hypothesis that has yet to undergo particularly careful scrutiny.
    When you consider how little we know about the overall structure
    and resilience of the biosphere, no one can claim certainty, or even
    confidence to a high degree, about what climactic changes "would"
    occur after a large-scale nuclear exchange.  In fact, the group
    putting forward the nuclear winter hypothesis clearly mark it as
    such...a substantial amount of further study is needed (and appropriate).

    >That being the case, why should we continue to produce nuclear
    >warheads?  If 800 or 1000 going off would kill us all anyway,
    >why do we have 10,000?  Why are we wasting our tax dollars
    >paying a bunch of our most intelligent people to try and "improve"
    >weapons design?

    There are a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with
    the nuclear winter hypothesis...however, the continued "improvement"
    of nuclear weapons is taking us in a direction where such a catastrophe
    is less, not more, likely.  Let me give three reasons why.

	o  The nuclear winter thesis is based upon moderate-sized attacks
	   (~1000MT) upon cities...while such `counter-value' attacks DO
	   NOT figure prominently in any intelligent nuclear war scenario
	   (contrary to the propaganda of the freeze movement), similar
	   effects could arise due to unintended, or `collateral' damage
	   to urban areas in the course of a larger `counter-force' attack
	   on military assets.

	   The new weapons which are entering our inventory tend to be
	   smaller and more accurate than those they are replacing.
	   For example, an MX warhead has less than 4% the explosive power
	   of the Titan II warhead it replaces.  Even taking into account
	   the multiple-warheads of the MX, the total MX force will have
	   just a little more than half the sheer destructive capacity of
	   all the Titans it's replacing.  The resulting ability to be
	   more discriminating in targeting will reduce dramatically the
	   amount of collateral damage to cities even in a major exchange,
	   and should therefore likely reduce the large-scale effects that
	   Ehrlich et al hypothesize.

	o  In fact, the increased accuracy of new-generation nuclear systems
	   make them more potent counter-force weapons, despite their
	   considerably smaller yields, makes such counter-force policies more
	   viable.  The United States since 1960 has completely rejected
	   `city-busting' as anything but a last-gasp retaliation to a
	   Soviet strike on our urban areas.  Unfortunately, we have not
	   always had the weapons to go with that declatory policy.  The
	   new generation of weapons we are preparing to deploy provide us
	   with a capability the Soviets have had for a decade: to threaten
	   an enemy's military assets, especially his nuclear ones, in
	   a controlled and selective manner, avoiding the kind of `spasmodic'
	   war which characterizes the nuclear winter scenario.

	o  Finally, the whole issue of nuclear winter is moot so long as
	   deterrence holds.  Europe today is enjoying its longest period
	   of peace since the early nineteenth century, which in turn was
	   the longest since the Pax Romanica over a millenium earlier.
	   While this status quo stands nuclear winter is a frightening
	   intellectual construct, and nothing more.

	   Deterrence, like peace, however, is a process NOT a condition.
	   It is not enough to say, there was no war yesterday, there is
	   no war today, there will be no war tomorrow; we have to work
	   and sacrifice to maintain the peace.  Force modernization is
	   a crucial element in the presevation of peace.  Even putting
	   aside nuclear winter, even putting aside the use of nuclear
	   weapons entirely, the next war in Europe would not be a day at
	   beach;  we have avoided that war for four decades by remaining
	   strong in the face of a strong adversary.  We only invite that
	   horrible conflict by scaring ourselves into weakness.

    As for the freeze movement, their motives are noble, but their means
    are ridiculous in the extreme.  I try to pay as little attention to
    them as possible, since in general their PR is laced with an appaling
    degree of ignorance and/or wishful thinking.  I'm much more concerned
    with ways in which the risk of nuclear horror can be lessened in the
    real world.

    I hope this helps a little, at least.  Cheers!

					    --- das


    PS --- It should go without saying, of course, that the opinions expressed
	above do not necessarily reflect those of the Rand Corporation or
	the sponsors of its research.