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C00002 00002	starwa[w84,jmc]		Issues raised in the starwars discussion
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starwa[w84,jmc]		Issues raised in the starwars discussion

starwars
jmc - Here are some opinions on the main issue and some side issues.
The main issue is whether the current efforts to develop a defense
against ballistic missiles, in particular those pursued by the
Livermore O-group mentioned in the NYT article, are a good idea.
My opinion is that they are for the following reasons:

1. Mutually assured defense is better than mutually assured destruction.
Any chance that it can be achieved should be pursued, even long
shots.  The current budget of $250 million for this work is cheap
at ten times the price.

2. Most of the arguments that have been raised against it are in the
nature of doubts.  Some answers have been offered, but the arguments will
be real only at the time deployment is proposed.  The argument that
research makes deployment inevitable is simply false, as history shows.
As the article says and Reagan said in his speech, many possible systems
are being studied.  My opinion is that partial defenses are better than
none at all.

3. The Soviet Union has specific characteristics that make it dangerous to
the world in general and the U.S. in particular in a way that no other
country is.  The Soviet Union is really different from the U.S. in this
respect.  Its main significant politics occurs within the Politburo, and
each change of leadership carries with it the danger of a nuclear
Napoleon.  Its military industry gets an increasing share of the national
income, and there is no known counterbalance.  Its effective secrecy
compared to our system of openness and ineffective secrecy means that
there is a substantial probability of our getting unpleasant major
surprises.  Its practice of invading any country that threatens to get
away from its orbit means that Grenada is the only country so far to
escape from communism.

Fortunately, its present leaders share to a substantial though
unknown degree our perception that nuclear war would be disastrous
to both sides.  Therefore, treaties are possible.

4. Some anti-defense activists express, especially when explicitly
pressed, the view that the U.S. is the main villain in the world
today.  Naturally they oppose any efforts to make the U.S. militarily
stronger.  Most, however, agree that the U.S. needs defense; they
merely oppose specific measures on grounds that they are unnecessary
or promote an arms race.  Some will express support for increasing
conventional strength.  Others support defense in general but
name no specific defense measure they support leading to certain
doubts about their sincerity among us reactionaries.  Moreover,
this is mixed in electoral politics.  A politician will not usually
defend the policies of electoral opponents attack even when his own
policy on the issue would not be very different.  This leads to
ideologues always feeling betrayed by the people they help elect
by attacking their opponents.

In the controversies over defense, especially at Stanford, it is
very hard to disentangle the different motivations.  It seems to
me that those who take an anti-U.S. position are the most single
minded and lead the others and are naturally unmotivated to
bring up matters on which they differ from their allies.
This is sometimes interpreted as the activists duping the others,
and sometimes that characterization is correct.

Side issues:

1. "Insane technological hubris".  This appears to have been
dropped once challenged.

2. Where it is safe to walk the streets.  Both the Soviet Union
and South Africa are relatively safe.  Unfortunately, this is
not much of an index of civil liberties.

3. I wish JMM would elaborate the thought behind his

"JMM- Thank God the Soviets have nuclear weapons.  I feel much better knowing
the Americans are not wreaking havoc around the world!
 
On a more serious note, I think the Vietnamese, El Salvadorans, Afghans, Poles,
Nicaraguans etc would tend to differ from this utopic vision."

The first paragraph was a reply to someone's "Thank God the U.S. has
nuclear weapons".  However, the second paragraph leaves me puzzled.
Why does he think that the Vietnamese (hundreds of thousands of whom
have drowned fleeing communism), the El Salvadoreans (engaged in a
civil war with atrocities on both sides), the Afghans (invaded by
the Soviet Union which shot the communist prime minister and replaced
him with one they brought from Czechoslovakia), the Poles (whose
government destroyed their free trade union movement at the
instigation of Moscow under the threat of invasion), and Nicaraguans
(involved in a civil war) should have special reasons to regret that
the U.S. has nuclear weapons if that is the Utopia being referred to?
A separate answer for each country with identification of the etc
would be most illuminating.

jmc - JMM is right that I do not share his view of Vietnam, Nicaragua
and El Salvador.  I prefer to emphasize Vietnam, since that is where
the others seem to be heading barring more effective action on the
part of the U.S. than seems probable.