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From: david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.followup
Subject: Re: Star Wars Defense
Message-ID: <282@fisher.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Aug-84 07:47:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: fisher.282
Posted: Mon Aug 20 07:47:06 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Aug-84 00:11:12 EDT
References: <1742@tekig1.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Statistics
Lines: 39

Why is Star Wars bad?

Suppose Star Wars WAS feasible and WAS 95% effective. Pretend also
that you were a Soviet leader, and American development of such a
system was proceeding apace. You would certainly do all of the
following four things:

	(1) Increase the number of warheads so that the 5% that did
	    get through would be more than sufficient,

	(2) Put more emphasis on basing systems against which Star
	    Wars is ineffective, e.g. SLBM's, cruise missiles, etc.,

	(3) Develop countermeasures against Star Wars, e.g. killer
	    sattelites, and

	(4) Develop a Soviet Star Wars system.

The result would be that the venerable concept of MAD (Mutual Assured
Destruction) would STILL be what prevents nuclear war, and you and the
Americans are both umpteen billion dollars in the hole.

Of course, it would be absurd for the US to forgo Star Wars
unilaterally, but as its deployment would not alter the balance of
power for very long, it makes sense to negotiate a mutual ban on such
weapons. Just because it is in Soviet interests to do so does not
automatically mean it is not in American interests, too.

The proponents of Star Wars seem to believe that American defense
policy operates in a vacuum or that Soviet policy is so static as to
be unable to react to innovations. Let us not repeat the error of MIRV
and deploy an expensive weapons system that is destabilizing and brings
only momentary advantage.

Star Wars will add security only for defense contractors.

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