🚀 go-pugleaf

On the old 'SDI was great! No it wasn't! It defeated communism! Communism
was doomed anyway!' debate, 
        kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:

>This is way, way off the subject of bit.listserv.catholic, but I can't
>resist. The argument presented above demonstrates a clear lack of 
>understanding of strategic thinking. In order to prevent an attack, you
>merely have to destroy the attacker's nerve. Read accounts of pre-Civil
>War battles, and you'll see many references to "making a demonstration".
>A "demonstration" was something that looked like an active defense or
>attack, but was not. It made the opposition lose nerve, think twice,
>give in to the nagging fear of doubt that success in that direction was
>possible. The Star Wars defense did not have to be 100% reliable to be
>effective militarily, because military men understand how unreliable
>things are in war. If it was only 50% reliable (a figure that everyone
>agreed could be reached) it meant that the attacker couldn't be *certain*
>the targets he wanted taken out would, in fact, be taken out.  
Good point, but the idea of a demonstration (otherwise known as a 'feint')
is that it costs you little or nothing. SDI cost the US far more than 
simply building more nukes (the equivalent of a 'frontal attack') would
have done.
If you think 50% defence would have been sufficient, you don't realise
just how much damage to the US economy a _single_ nuclear strike would have
done.
>
>Besides which, everyone has always been on about disarmament. It seems
>to me that if you can guarantee 50% of the incoming missiles are destroyed,
>you've just managed a 50% unilateral disarmament process for the *OTHER*
>side. 50% of their weapons are essentially scrap metal with a rocket 
>attached. Not too many weapons treaties managed that level of disarmament.
Again, not too many treaties cost billions of dollars. And remember SDI
never actually worked.

>Steve Kellmeyer             kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

Robert Alcock.
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