There Will Be War Volume III

by Jerry Pournelle

  Cruise missiles are nothing more than pilotless aircraft. They have range limits, and they are vulnerable to air defenses. They must operate in a nuclear environment; unlike the ICBM, they do not rise above the atmosphere but must fly through whatever is left after nuclear detonations. Worse though: They cannot survive a first strike. Whatever the value of cruise missiles, they are soft; they must launch on warning of attack or they will not be launched at all.

  The ground leg of the triad is Minuteman. There are 1,000 Minuteman missiles. The location of each is known to inches: It is perfectly legal to buy copies of U.S. Geodetic Survey maps and use surveyors’ transits to mark silo locations on them. Since Soviet missile accuracy is now well below 1,000 feet, the single-shot probability that one of their warheads will kill a Minuteman missile is something like 0.99. They have some 12,000 warheads they can target against the United States.

  The wet leg of the triad depends entirely on staying hidden, but the oceans are increasingly less opaque. “Synthetic aperture radar” experiments made the news in 1982: A radar flown on the Shuttle was able to see through the sands of the Sahara and map ancient watercourses. Old irrigation canals in Yucatan, long hidden by dense jungle, were found—and whales were seen some fifty meters below the surface of the oceans.

  The Soviets routinely fly naval observation radar satellites with nuclear-powered 100-kilowatt power supplies. We don’t know precisely what they see with them: We have yet to fly a 10-kilowatt power supply for our observation satellites. We do know what we see with our lower power. All three legs of our SOF triad are vulnerable. It is difficult to believe they could survive a sophisticated first strike in the later years of this decade. If we cannot rely on passive measures such as basing, we must turn to active protection. There are two classes of active measures.

  One, defensive systems, is here recommended. The alternative is one or another form of offensive protection: preventative war, preemptive strike or launch on early warning.

  Launch on warning requires warning systems. There must also be control. In the event of an attack against Washington by submarine-based missiles, the warning time is twelve minutes or less. In the event of a smuggled weapon detonating in, say, the Soviet Embassy, there is no warning to national command at all.

  Launch on warning requires, then, a decision mechanism that can function within the fifteen or so minutes that will elapse between confirmation of a massive attack on the missile forces and the detonation of the attacking weapons. Given human frailties, the pressure to computerize this decision process will be very great.

  We will be forced toward the world of “War Games”; a silly picture, yet one that held some realities.

  A world with both sides poised to launch on warning is not a stable world.

  In 1969, Stefan Possony and I tried to convince the incoming administration to adopt Assured Survival. Alas, we failed.

  However, there always was considerable opposition to MAD. After the election of 1980, there was another concerted attempt to persuade the White House that Assured Survival is preferable. Many experts—Edward Teller and Lowell Wood at Lawrence Livermore; Max Hunter and his “Gang of Four,” who made alliance with Senator Wallop; General Daniel O. Graham and Project High Frontier—argued that MAD was bankrupt.

  Eventually someone got through. On March 23, 1980, the president made an historic speech.

  He said: “I have become more and more deeply convinced that the human spirit must be capable of rising above dealing with other nations and human beings by threatening their existence.”

  He proposed that “we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive… What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?

  “I know that this is a formidable technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. Yet current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it’s reasonable for us to begin this effort… There will be failures and setbacks, just as there will be successes and breakthroughs… but isn’t it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it is…

  “My fellow Americans, tonight we’re launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history.”

  The response was rapid: A number of Congress creatures giggled “Star Wars” and dubbed the president “Darth Vader.”

  However, when The New York Times took a poll, even though its questions were as “neutral” as the Times’s polls usually are, the American people responded to “Star Wars” by saying, eight to three, “Damn right, and about time, too.”

  The Treaty of Tarzana

  On the weekend of July 29, 1983, we held in Tarzana, California, the third meeting of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policy.

  The Council is composed of some fifty top scientific, managerial and political leaders of the pro-space movement and aerospace community. One purpose of our meeting was to examine the new policy of Assured Survival and to suggest candidate systems that might be used in this historic endeavor.

  We looked at problems as well. They’re formidable. For all that, we concluded something startling: We could have, by 1990, a defensive system sufficient to render it impossible for the Soviet Union to eliminate the U.S. strategic deterrent forces.

  True: On that time scale, we still rely on deterrence; but from that moment on, we rely less and less heavily on deterrence and more and more on defense.

  The Council proposes an interlocked system of defenses, some based in space, some on the ground. Ballistic non-nuclear “shotgun satellites,” space-based laser battle stations, very powerful ground-based lasers with mirrors in space and nuclear-pumped “pop-up” lasers would combine to meet a variety of threats against the U.S. and our allies. Each system performs one or another task well; in addition, some of these systems can protect each other. None of this is easy or cheap. The problems with defense are formidable. As an example, space-based components are vulnerable, both in peacetime and to wave attacks when the war begins. Vulnerabilities can be overcome. One method is simple: Harden the satellites. The simplest method for hardening is to surround them with mass. An excellent source of mass is green cheese—i.e., lunar materials. The first shovelful of green cheese is terribly expensive, almost as expensive as fifty MX missiles; after that, green cheese gets cheaper, and it’s being used for defense, which harms no one.

  We also get experience in space operations and a scientific base on the Moon. The new technologies developed might well pay for the entire defense program: After all, the microcomputer industry was developed in response to the need for on-board computers for Minuteman missiles.

  The harder the defense system, the more difficult it is to knock out; ideally, one hardens defensive satellites to the point that it requires a nuclear strike to destroy them. The enemy cannot start a war without taking out the defensive satellites. The result is a great increase in the complexity of any first strike—meaning a great increase in the stability of the balance of terror. In addition, a nuclear attack against our defensive satellites is an unambiguous act of war, greatly increasing our warning times.

  All this and more is discussed in The Report of the Citizens’ Advisory Council, which can be obtained for $10.00 from the L-5 Society, 1060 E. Elm St., Tucson, Arizona 85719. Note that the Society sponsors the Council but the Council’s conclusions remain the responsibility of the Council.

  The full report contains papers on strategy, economics and diplomacy. It also contains excellent unclassified descriptions of strategic defense systems.

  One obstacle to deployment of defensive systems was selecting the system to deploy. A number of strategic experts agreed that we should begin deployment of strategic defenses, but each ad
vocated a favorite system. Because each saw the situation as a zero-sum game in which deployment of one system meant suppression of the others, the different groups tended to speak harshly of each other.

  Leading spokespeople for each major group were present at the Council meeting. The following open letter to the president was unanimously endorsed by those present. It represents a remarkable consensus among the most talented and best-informed group I have ever worked with.

  Because the meeting was held in Tarzana, its joint statement has become known as “The Treaty of Tarzana.”

  30 July 1983

  Dear Mr. President:

  It has become a common, but erroneous, American dictum that an offense always overwhelms a defense. Yet Stalingrad and the Battle of Britain, to name two examples within memory, proved that a good defense can defeat a vigorous offense. We believe that a stable peace is best assured by a balance of offense and defense; and that even a modestly effective defense can powerfully deter a first strike by any aggressor.

  We believe that several systems, both kinetic and directed energy systems, should be developed concurrently for a spectrum of strategic defenses. After years of neglect of strategic defense, we find it imperative that several avenues be pursued concurrently. We must not have a triad of offense and a monad of defense.

  While we agree that point defenses by kinetic energy weapons serve an immediate need and should be developed, we believe the nation should vigorously investigate the uses of space for strategic defense.

  We believe it is imperative that we first address four candidate systems which provide a significant military capability, i.e., to deny assurance of first-strike success by any aggressor by 1990:

  Multiple satellite using kinetic energy kill.

  Ground-based lasers and mirrors in space.

  Space-based lasers.

  Nuclear explosive-driven beam technologies collectively known as third generation systems.

  Ground-based point defense systems.

  We also urge greatly accelerated research on the many other candidate systems, including particle-beam weapons, which offer promise on the longer term.

  Implicit in the adoption of our recommendations are the requirements to state openly and unequivocally our intent to adopt a balanced offensive-defensive national strategy and to assess the spectrum of threats and technical risks associated with actual deployment.

  Daniel O. Graham, Lt. Gen., USA (Ret.)

  Maxwell Hunter, Ph.D.

  Francis X. Kane, Ph.D., Col., USAF (Ret.)

  Stewart Meyer, Maj. Gen., USA (Ret.)

  Dennis A. Reilly, Ph.D.

  Lowell W. Wood, Ph.D.

  SYSTEMS ASSESSMENT GROUP

  CITIZENS’ ADVISORY COUNCIL ON NATIONAL SPACE POLICY

  (The report of the Systems Assessment Group was unanimously approved by the entire Council, some fifty experts in military and space technology.)

  The systems proposed are not cheap, but defense is not cheap; and even a small war is expensive. What is it worth to save even one American city? And none of these systems threaten the life of a single Russian schoolgirl.

  Let the president and Congress know your views; for if we cannot build support for this, offensive systems will eat the budget and we will have another generation living under the balance of terror.

  The choice is ours.

  Hollywood, California

  November, 1983

  Editor's Introduction to:

  THE SPECTRE GENERAL

  by Theodore Cogswell

  I first met Ted Cogswell at the Chicago World Science Fiction Convention in 1962. I met the late H. Beam Piper at that same convention. One magnificent night was spent in Robert A. Heinlein’s suite. (In those days, Mr. Heinlein was the only science fiction writer who made enough money to afford a suite.) Beam Piper, Ted Cogswell, Jay Kay Klein, about four others whose names and faces I cannot remember, and I devoured the night by consuming mass quantities of bourbon and singing magnificent old songs.

  One of the songs was from the Spanish Civil War. Ted Cogswell taught it to us. He’d been there as a volunteer in the International Brigade.

  I met Ted off and on over the years after that. Like many science fiction people, we don’t see each other often, but we developed a friendship that wouldn’t have been much closer if we lived next door to each other.

  When I was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), I asked Ted to edit the SFWA Forum, which is our “private” official publication. In my judgment he was the best editor Forum ever had; while Ted was editor, the Forum was the first thing one read when it came in the mail. Alas, Ted has an, uh, interesting sense of humor, and absolutely no reverence for traditions or causes—even those he supports. There was no trouble while I remained president, but after my retirement, one group within SFWA thought Ted was insufficiently sympathetic to their cause. Storms and strife broke out. Ted resigned—and the Forum has never been that interesting since. Alas.

  I was invited to Ted’s wedding, which was held in San Miguel de Allende, Old Mexico. I suppose it’s as well that I couldn’t attend. Ted’s bride, George Rae, has a strong temper; and through a number of misadventures, Ted and George spent their wedding night in a Mexican jail. They were rescued from durance vile by the efforts of another writer, Mack Reynolds, or rather by Jeanette Reynolds, Mack’s wife, who thoroughly understands the local politics.

  “The Spectre General” is Ted Cogswell’s best-known story. When I first read it, I was in military service. I found it oddly disturbing, and I have never forgotten it. The story is, of course, a satire; but it is also a serious and thought-provoking work, incorporating a number of historical and military truths.

  Empire, Commonwealth, Protectorate, Republic, Anarchy, Dictatorship, Timocracy, Tyranny, Monarchy; the tragic cycles of man’s efforts turn through endless ages, as we seek the ideal government. Some abandon the search. Others turn cynical or succumb to the worship of power. Some are overcome with despair. Others simply say to hell with it.

  Yet, through all ages of ages, there are those to whom duty and virtue are irresistible calls.

  THE SPECTRE GENERAL

  by Theodore Cogswell

  I

  “Sergeant Dixon!” Kurt stiffened. He knew that voice. Dropping the handles of the wooden plow, he gave a quick “rest” to the private and a polite “by your leave, sir” to the lieutenant who were yoked together in double harness. They both sank gratefully to the ground as Kurt advanced to meet the approaching officer.

  Marcus Harris, the commander of the 427th Light Maintenance Battalion of the Imperial Space Marines, was an imposing figure. The three silver eagle feathers of a full colonel rose proudly from his war bonnet and the bright red of the flaming comet insignia of the Space Marines that was painted on his chest stood out sharply against his sun-blackened, leathery skin. As Kurt snapped to attention before him and saluted, the colonel surveyed the fresh-turned earth with an experienced eye.

  “You plow a straight furrow, soldier!” His voice was hard and metallic, but it seemed to Kurt that there was a concealed glimmer of approval in his flinty eyes. Dixon flushed with pleasure and drew back his broad shoulders a little farther.

  The commander’s eyes flicked down to the battle-ax that rested snugly in its leather holster at Kurt’s side. “You keep a clean sidearm, too.”

  Kurt uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving that he had worked over his weapon before reveille that morning until there was a satin gloss to its redwood handle and the sheen of black glass to its obsidian head.

  “In fact,” said Colonel Harris, “you’d be officer material if—” His voice trailed off.

  “If what?” asked Kurt eagerly.

  “If,” said the colonel with a note of paternal fondness in his voice that sent cold chills dancing down Kurt’s spine, “you weren’t the most completely unmanageable, undisciplined, overmuscled and underbrained knucklehead I’ve ever had the misfortune to have in my command. T
his last little unauthorized jaunt of yours indicates to me that you have as much right to sergeant’s stripes as I have to have kittens. Report to me at ten tomorrow! I personally guarantee that when I’m through with you—if you live that long—you’ll have a bare forehead!”

  Colonel Harris spun on one heel and stalked back across the dusty plateau toward the walled garrison that stood at one end. Kurt stared after him for a moment and then turned and let his eyes slip across the wide belt of lush green jungle that surrounded the high plateau. To the north rose a great range of snow-capped mountains and his heart filled with longing as he thought of the strange and beautiful thing he had found behind them. Finally he plodded slowly back to the plow, his shoulders stooped and his head sagging. With an effort he recalled himself to the business at hand.

  “Up on your aching feet, soldier!” he barked to the reclining private. “If you please, sir!” he said to the lieutenant. His calloused hands grasped the worn plow handles.

  “Giddiup!” The two men strained against their collars and with a creak of harness, the wooden plow started to move slowly across the arid plateau.

  II

  Conrad Krogson, Supreme Commander of War Base Three of Sector Seven of the Galactic Protectorate, stood at quaking attention before the visiscreen of his space communicator. It was an unusual position for the commander. He was accustomed to having people quake while he talked.

  “The Lord Protector’s got another hot tip that General Carr is still alive!” said the sector commander. “He’s yelling for blood, and if it’s a choice between yours and mine, you know who will do the donating!”

  “But, sir,” quavered Krogson to the figure on the screen, “I can’t do anything more than I am doing. I’ve had double security checks running since the last time there was an alert, and they haven’t turned up a thing. And I’m so shorthanded now that if I pull another random purge, I won’t have enough techs left to work the base.”