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Aucbvax.1474 fa.arms-d utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!CSVAX.upstill@Berkeley Mon Jun 1 14:16:48 1981 ...the debate goes on (RMS RESponds)

...this is RMS latest statement on the arms race. I would like to use it to raise an issue.

From: Richard M. Stallman <RMS AT MIT-AI> To: CSVAX.upstill at BERKELEY

I don't believe it is possible to "transcend the game" because I don't believe that the game is only in our minds. It is in the Russian minds, too, and in their possible and actual deeds. I believe that if the Russians wanted to transcend the game, then we would already have done so, in the form of arms control treaties. I'd be happy with that. The reason we have not is, in my opinion, that the Russians want to make us surrender; they don't want to get out of this game, they want to win it.

In other words, I'd go along with sincere mutual arms control or disarmament, but not unilateral. If you can convince the Russians to agree with this, then we can get out of the game. (I believe that enough US officials would go along, already).

I don't believe that any change in perception on our part can alter the facts of what the Russians are doing, or their motivation. A perceptual change on the Russian part might do it. International pressure is not enough. If I were president, I wouldn't allow ANY international pressure to move me to let the US be in a position for the Russians to win with a first strike. The effects of the international pressure couldn't possibly be as bad as the effects of the Russian first strike and their subsequent conquest of the world.

Your conclusions about where the game is going may be true. I'd agree with them, if only offensive weapons improvements were in the works. However, even if they are true, that doesn't mean that there is any way out of the game! We may really be in a bad situation, but the game is telling us how to make the best of it, and if we ignore the game, we'll just get something even worse. However, I'm not convinced that the game is going downhill. Defensive weapons changes, such as making missiles mobile without changing their numbers or offensive power, can make both sides safer.

I think you are making a mistaken assumption about your opponents when you say that the object of the game is to be able to hit the enemy hardest. Again, there may be some hawks who want that, but I know there are a lot of people, including me, who do not consider that threatening the Russians with more weapons is the goal. My goal is to make sure the Russians do not expect to be able to conquer us. This doesn't mean we have to have more of anything than they do. There could be a stable situation in which the defense had the advantage, and we could be sure of deterring an attack with a smaller force than they had. That would be fine with me. But getting to this situation requires building new (defensive) weapons systems.

At the moment, if we try to get out of the game ourselves, we can only do so by surrendering. I don't want to do that. I'd rather take a risk of ending human life, if I gain some chance of preserving human life with liberty too (if we succeed in deterring a war). Surrendering preserves human life only, without liberty; and I in particular would be killed because the tyrants would not like me. Stalin killed many millions of Russians. Nuclear war isn't the only form of mass-murder that we have to worry about.

e

The issue this raises seems to be the one that underlies all discussions of arms control: that is, the intentions/reliability of the Soviets. While I have copious thoughts on that myself, for now I'd just like to raise the double question: 1) Is the Soviet Union the monolithic, intractable menace it is popularly imagined to be, and (possibly more importantly) 2) Since it is hard to foresee a national consensus on 1), is it necessary to deal with this question in trying to envision a way out of the mess we are in? That is, is it possible to envision real reversal of the arms race in the absence of sincere Russian cooperation? Have at it, folks.

Steve

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