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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.followup,net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars Defense Plan
Message-ID: <4264@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 17:52:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4264
Posted: Thu Aug 23 17:52:13 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 17:52:13 EDT
References: <966@ulysses.UUCP>, <363@vu44.UUCP> <189@ho95b.UUCP>, <284@fisher.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 24

> .................................. 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. 

Either I didn't see that article, or it didn't seem plausible.  I agree
that a Star Wars defence is of little use against cruise missiles, but
intercepting SLBMs is not much harder than intercepting ICBMs.  It means
the detection network has to be better, and the reaction time has to be
faster, but these are problems of degree, not fundamental obstacles.
The same comments apply to long-range "tactical" ballistic missiles,
although the detection and speed problems are still worse.

Cruise-missile defence is essentially an air-defence problem, worse in
degree but not different in kind from intercepting bombers.  Technology
for high-percentage air defences has existed for a long time, although
a leakproof air defence is very difficult.  The less said about the
current state of our air defences, the better, but there is no serious
technological barrier to major improvements.  It's mostly a question of
will:  our air defences have reached their current sad state through two
decades of neglect and low priority.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry