🚀 go-pugleaf

In <ewright.726186341@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:

>In <1993Jan4.165523.11040@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:

>>Technically possible, but militarily dangerous. You've just escalated
>>a brushfire conventional war into a nuclear exchange.

>Oh?  So what are you going to do about it?  MAD -- the aptly named
>legacy of Robert McNamara -- is still in effect.  If you retaliate 
>by launching a nuclear strike against your enemy's territory, he can 
>do the same to you. Are you prepared to sacrifice millions of your
>citizens to avenge the loss of one spy satellite?

>I didn't think so.

This same logic, of course, is sometimes used to show how it is
possible to nuke an enemy city and get away with it -- is he going to
sacrifice millions MORE of his citizens in a full scale exchange?
This is usually used to show why MAD ostensibly has nothing to do with
us not having fought a war with the Soviets over all this time.

The trick is that once the first nuke flies, things stop being
'logical'.  Whoever fired first, the other guy has now detected at
least one nuclear burst and has lost a lot of electronic assets (C3I
stuff).  He's blinded, uninformed, and knows the other guy has fired
at least one nuke.  What's he going to do?

>You might retaliate by attacking your enemy's satellites, but if
>he started the ASAT battle, it's because he decided he has less 
>to lose than you do.  (And if you're the United States, he's almost
>certainly right.)

Using this kind of tactic to get satellites is VERY dangerous, and I
would say it is generally a bad idea.






-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.