Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site whuxl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!whuxl!orb
From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: RE: Star Wars Defense
Message-ID: <188@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 00:22:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.188
Posted: Thu Aug 23 00:22:23 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 05:08:52 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J.
Lines: 61

>Unfortunately, it is not clear that arms control agreements are really
>practical.  Certainly, with the Soviet opposition to on-site
>inspections, such agreements are not practicable today.
 
Actually the Soviets HAVE agreed to on-site inspections in the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  What is truly unfortunate is that
Reagan has refused to submit this treaty for formal ratification
by the Senate.

>It is interesting to me,
>however, that as soon as we demonstrated an ability to destroy orbital
>warheads, then the Soviets were anxious to discuss banning the kinds of
>weapons which we now had but that they lacked.  
 
Actually this is nothing new.  In fact the U.S. has always been ahead
in the nuclear arms race, as we still are today.  But we have been
too shortsighted to stop while we were ahead.  Thus for example the
U.S. was ahead in MIRVed missiles during the SALT negotiations in
Nixon's administration.  But Nixon and Kissinger, because we were ahead
refused to include MIRVed weapons in the SALT treaties, despite
Soviet requests.  Now ten years later Reagan comes on TV to tell us
that our ICBM's face a terrible threat: namely MIRVed Soviet weapons!
Why didn't we agree to limit MIRVed weapons ten years ago and save ourselves
the future threat?
>Reagan agreed to
>discuss this, but wanted to include in the arms limitation discussion
>the topic of other nuclear weapons.  Since the Soviets have an edge on
>us in that kind of weaponry, they have refused to discuss it.
 
The Soviet edge in just about any sort of weaponry would be a surprise
to the Pentagon! In fact US News and World Report reported several months
ago the Pentagon's latest assessment of US vs Soviet military technology:
the Soviets were ahead in 3 categories, the US in 11 categories
and both were even in the rest.  There is also the answer Reagan's own
Secretary of Defense gave to a point blank question :"would you be
willing to trade the US forces for the Soviet forces?"
Caspar Weinberger's answer:"No."
>he (Reagan) is willing to discuss any arms
>limitation agreements that hold promise of being both practical and
>practicable.

I would like to believe that but I can't.  First off, Ronald Reagan has
never supported ANY nuclear arms agreement negotiated by ANY president,
Republican or Democrat.  Moreover this is the statement on treaties
he made in a speech at West Point in May, 1981:
   "The argument, if there is any, will be over which weapons, not
    whether we should forsake weaponry for treaties and agreements."
         Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War, by Robert Scheer, p.99
I have yet to see any evidence that Ronald Reagan has changed his mind.
Even with the big hullabaloo his administration tried to raise for
a time about the prospect of space weapons negotiations, it was obvious
it was a less than genuine offer when the Soviets complained that
the Reagan administration response never even mentioned space weapons
whatsoever.  Indeed the Reagan administration later admitted that indeed
their response never mentioned space weapons at all, supposedly what
the negotiations were to be about!
  Tim Sevener
  whuxl!orb
  Bell Labs, Whippany