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The Star Wars fallacy

U.S. scientists outline mystery and danger

When Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defence

_ —Star Wars — Initiative, he also quite pointedly defined

his concept of ‘peace and security”’ for humankind duf-
ing the decades to come.

Reagan’s path to peace, as he made clear, involves an

American technological coup so brilliant, so foolproof
_ that it would forever render nuclear weapons “‘impotent

and obsolete’. Such a breakthrough, he said, would

enable the U.S. to “‘intercept and destroy strategic bal-
_ listic missiles’? before they reach the U.S. Then, said
Reagan, ‘“‘free people could live secure in the knowledge
that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant

.S. retaliation’’.

_ This vision has been taken up by a number of U.S.
Night-wingers, including Zbigniew Brzezinski (re-
Member him?) who, in a widely-syndicated article, *‘In

fence of Star Wars’’, recently argued that strategic
Space-based missile defence offers the only realistic
alternative to nuclear holocaust. With effective pro-
tection from missiles, says he, mutual assured destruc-
tion — the balance of terror — can be replaced by what
he is pleased to call ‘‘mutual assured survival’’.

It has become clear, however, that a significant
number of the people who are called upon to produce this
technological miracle — the U.S. scientific community
— have grave and fundamental doubts concerning the
Wisdom, feasibility, cost and morality of the scheme.

_ Arecent study by four top American physicists, pub-
lished in Scientific American (October 1984), for in-
Stance, lambastes the Star Wars project as a ‘‘grandiose
Manifestation of the illusion that science can re-create
the world that disappeared when the first nuclear bomb
Was exploded in 1945”’.

Now a much more thorough and scathing critique of

€agan’s plans for space militarization has appeared in
book-form, prepared by the 9,000-member Union of
Concerned Scientists. Aimed at a general readership,
The Fallacy of Star Wars is both an introduction to the
technological dynamics of the arms race, and an ex-

as

Backgrounder
Fred Weir

nological ones. The spiral of technological confrontation
has, since the end of the Second World War, only com-
plicated and vitiated international relations, and brought
humanity to the edge of extinction. The present plan for
Star Wars is the technological fallacy writ large:

“The belief that science and technology can relieve
America and Russia of the burden of nuclear deterrence
has gripped many policymakers and the public alike for
nearly forty years. Sadly, this belief has usually pro-
pelled both nations toward more weapons-building, not
less. And the technological revolutions so earnestly
sought by successive presidencies have undermined
-American security when the Soviets copied our lead.

‘Perhaps the most virulent form of this marriage of
technological hope and ideological fear is the search for
the perfect defence, the protective shield that would
re-create the days before atomic weapons menaced
every hour’’.

The current ‘‘research’’ program to develop a Star
Wars missile defence is budgeted at $26-billion, an
enormous sum. However, as the Pentagon’s top scien-
tist, Richard DeLauer recently told Congress, ‘‘When
the time comes to deploy any one of these (Star Wars)
technologies, you'll be staggered by the cost’’. In fact, a
space-based missile defence system — even though it is
unlikely to work — will cost upwards of $1-trillion.

The technological complexity of the Star Wars project
is almost beyond belief, notes the Union of Concerned
Scientists. In order to develop a working missile defence

_ We would have a defence of stupefying complexity under the total control of
a computer program whose proportions defy description, and whose ;
performance would remain a deep mystery until the tragic moment when it

would be called into action.

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haustive survey of the current efforts to develop Star
ars weaponry.
Among the book’s several distinguished scientific au-
hors is one nameé that cries out across a generation:
Hans A. Bethe. A Nobel-prize winning physicist, Bethe
knows much about the fatal logic of technological optim-
ism. He once believed in it himself. He was Chief of the
heoretical Division in the Manhattan Project, the WW
Il effort that produced the first Atomic Bomb. _
_ The basic position of Bethe and the others in this book
1S that the arms race is, first and foremost, a human
Problem which needs to be addressed with bold political
and diplomatic initiatives rather than clever tech-

system, at least eight major scientific breakthroughs will
be required, ‘‘every single one equivalent to or greater
than the Manhattan Project’’, which was itself the largest
research effort in history.

Even if the problems are overcome, at incredible ex-
pense, and a Star Wars system can be deployed, vigor-
ous Soviet countermeasures are likely to render the
whole thing useless. ‘‘The Soviets have made it clear
that they view the quest for Ballistic Missile Defence
(BMD) as an unacceptable threat. They fear that such a
BMD system would give the United States the option to
strike first — an understandable fear, since Defence
Secretary Weinberger has said that he would view a

Orbiting Battle Mirror

Ultraviolet Laser Beam

Geostationary Mirror

A possible player in Star Wars
— a chemical laser's beam is
focused and aimed by a suit-
ably oriented and shaped sys-
tem of mirrors.

lilustration from book

similar Soviet system as ‘one of the most frightening
prospects’ imaginable’’.

The book goes into considerable detail, listing possible
countermeasures that the Soviets might take to com-
plicate and baffle U.S. Star Wars systems. The result, it
says, will be an endless and ever-escalating arms race in
space.

And even if a working system is deployed, “‘would we
reach the promised land where nuclear weapons are
‘impotent and obsolete’? Not likely. We would then
have a defence of stupefying complexity under the total
control of a computer program whose proportions defy
description, and whose performance would remain a
deep mystery until the tragic moment when it would be
called into action.

“It is difficult to imagine a more hazardous con-
frontation’’, notes the Union of Concerned Scientists.
‘*And it is equally difficult to understand how anyone can
believe that this is the path toward a less dangerous
world. A direct and safe road is there for all to see —
equitable and verifiable deep cuts in strategic offensive
forces and immediate negotiations to ban all space
weapons. If we are to take that road, we must abandon
the misconception that nuclear explosives are military
weapons, and the illusion that ever more sophisticated
technology can by itself remove the perils that science
and technology have created ...

“The late Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg
was fond of attacking schemes he opposed by declaring
‘the end unattainable, the means harebrained, and the
cost staggering’. For Vandenberg, this was a politically
useful form of exaggeration. For total ballistic missile
defence, it is an entirely fitting description’.

THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: The
Fallacy of Star Wars Vintage Books, New York, 1984,
paperback, $4.95.

Canada must reverse Star Wars stand — CP

TORONTO — Pressing for a reversal of the Mulroney
0vernment’s pro-U.S. military policies, the leader of
the Communist Party of Canada, William Kashtan, has
Called for Canadian withdrawal of Canadian support for
the U.S. militarization of space.

Following is the text of a press release issued by
Kashtan, February 18:

In response to widespread public concern External

airs Minister Clark has assured Canadians that the
U.S. Government is not pressing Canada to accept nu-
Clear arms. He also declared that Canada will not have
Nuclear weapons on its territory.

Mr. Clark is not being truthful with the Canadian
People.

The fact is that as far back as 1957 the then Canadian

OVvernment agreed to a U.S. contingency plan to place
Nuclear weapons on Canadian soil in the event of an
€mergency.

Was this debated in parliament? Were the Canadian
People involved in this fateful decision? ==

Today, by denying that the U.S. administration is now

demanding that U.S. nuclear weapons be deployed on
Canadian territory, Mr. Clark covers up the following:

Canada as a member of NATO is presently committed

to the first use of nuclear weapons, and this despite the ’

fact that the USSR has pledged never to be the first to use
such weapons.

Canada is committed to having nuclear weapons on
Canadian soil. This commitment made in 1957 still holds.

The Mulroney government has endorsed the Reagan
Star Wars program of space militarization and once
again U.S. imperialism is dangerously escalating the
arms race. The U.S. Star Wars program is neither a
research nor a defence program. It is part of the U.S.
first-strike nuclear strategy. With the modernization of
the Dew Line under U.S. pressure Canada is being
further tied to this U.S. nuclear war strategy.

Thus, when Mr. Clark tells Canadians that the U.S.
Government is not pressing Canada to accept nuclear
weapons today, he hides the fact that Canada has been
locked into a U.S. fiirst-strike nuclear strategy through

its membership in NATO and Norad.

Canadians must demand a reversal of the present
pro-U.S. policies of the Mulroney governent which
could lead to the total destruction of this country.

If New Zealand can tell the U.S. administration it will
not allow U.S. ships with nuclear weapons entry into
New Zealand waters; if the Australian Government can
tell the U.S. administration it will not permit MX testing
in Australian territory; if West European countries that
are members of NATO can tell the Reagan administra-
tion they oppose the Star Wars program, why can’t the
Mulroney government stand up to U.S. pressure also?

The Canadian Government has embarked on a
dangerous course, a course that imperils the security of
our country and people. That pro-U.S. course must be
reversed by massive public pressure. The Canadian
Government must withdraw support of the U.S. mili-
tarization of space program, which threatens Canada
and humankind. What Canada needs today is an
independent foreign policy that strengthens the security
of the country and peace in the world.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 27, 1985 e 5