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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Star Wars defense
Message-ID: <165@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Aug-84 20:41:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.165
Posted: Sun Aug 19 20:41:36 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Aug-84 00:12:49 EDT
References: <1650@ucbvax.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J.
Lines: 23

The Star Wars defense can NEVER be 100% guaranteed--so long
as even 1% of the Soviet Union's 20,000 current nuclear
weapons could survive the Star Wars defense then the U.S.
will be virtually annihilated.  But assuming only 20,000
nuclear weapons in the face of a U.S. effort to knock down
all Soviet weapons is excessively optimistic.  After several
arms agreements both the USSR and the US have dismantled past
nuclear weapons systems to replace them with more modern ones.
There would be absolutely no way the Russians would do that
given the threat of the huge American offensive arsenal coupled
with a Star Wars defense.  Instead moving towards a Star Wars
system seems the surest way to accelerate the already overheated
arms race to unprecedented proportions.
It also violates one of the most important treaties ever negotiated
between the US and USSR-the ABM treaty.  That treaty has been
the only thing standing in the way of massive Soviet deployments
of ABM sites throughout the Soviet Union which would encourage
the Soviet Union's first strike capability.
 
Tim Sevener
whuxl!orb
Bell Labs, Whippany