Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fisher.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!fisher!david
From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars Defense Plan
Message-ID: <284@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Aug-84 08:28:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.284
Posted: Wed Aug 22 08:28:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 00:43:10 EDT
References: <966@ulysses.UUCP>, <363@vu44.UUCP> <189@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics
Lines: 23

Bill Stewart suggests: 

" A 95% effective defense may not help much against 10,000 warheads,
  but against a few dozen missles it reduces the damage to
  "acceptable" levels.  (If we're talking about total
  destruction of Europe, the government might be willing to risk
  an additional 20 or 30 million Americans)."

If the purpose is to launch a "demonstration" of a few dozen missiles
which might effectively be thwarted by a Star Wars defense, it would
be a safe bet that a Soviet (or American, for that matter) leader
would make that demonstration with SLBM's or Cruise missiles which
were relatively immune to a Star Wars defense. As I pointed out in an
earlier article, even an effective Star Wars is effective only against
land-based ICBM's. 

The 95% figure that's bandied about by proponents not only assumes
technological success, but also assumes that the Soviet nuclear force
stays fixed in size AND composition. I'll break the news to you now:
it won't.

					David Rubin
			{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david