RE: RE: RE: starship-design: Want to bet that Black Horse is in here somewhere?

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Well, I must correct myself (since no one except Kelly called me on it). I
was thinking that "that which is not explicitly forbidden must be allowed".
Unfortunately, my memory of the ABM Treaty dates from when it was signed. I
just went back to look at it and it turns out that they DID explicitly
forbid everything except the two ground based sites. Here is a brief
synopsis:

IV. THE ABM TREATY
AND BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE
Background
The ABM Treaty was a product of the Cold War, bipolarity, and the state of
technology at that time. The United States and Soviet Union had both
deployed significant strategic nuclear forces that increasingly came to rely
on long-range ballistic missiles. In an attempt to forestall a further
Soviet increase in the number of such systems, the United States sought and
obtained from the Soviet Union in 1972 an interim agreement for the
limitation of "strategic offensive arms" (Interim Agreement), which
essentially froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers of the
two sides at existing levels. At the same time, the two parties entered into
a formal treaty (the ABM Treaty) on the limitation of "antiballistic missile
systems," or systems designed to defend against strategic ballistic
missiles.
The ABM Treaty did not ban all antiballistic missile systems. It permitted
the research, development, and limited deployment of ground-based ABM
systems. As signed in 1972, the two sides were permitted two operational ABM
sites, each with 100 ABM launchers and 100 ABM interceptor missiles, with
associated radar, storage, and test facilities. A 1974 amendment reduced the
number of permitted operational ABM sites to one per side. The deployments
were limited to ground-based ABM systems, which were the technological
approach of the time and included fixed ground-based launchers,
ground-launched interceptor missiles, and associated ground-based radars.
Deployment of ABM systems based on "other physical principles" and including
constituent parts capable of substituting for these ground-based ABM
components was to be subject to discussion and agreement by the parties.
Development, testing, or deployment of sea-, air-, or space-based, or mobile
land-based systems were all banned.
[37]
The ABM Treaty thus enshrined as strategic doctrine the principle of
deterrence through threat of retaliation. Since neither side was free to
deploy unlimited defenses against the strategic ballistic missiles of the
other, each nation sought to deter any outright attack by the other through
its ability to threaten overwhelming retaliation against an attack with its
own nuclear-armed strategic ballistic missiles. The Interim Agreement and
the ABM Treaty were bilateral agreements applicable only to U.S. and Soviet
strategic ballistic missiles and ABM systems. While the Soviets were worried
about U.K. and French strategic nuclear forces, and both the Soviet Union
and the United States had reason to be concerned about Chinese nuclear
forces, these forces were not limited by either agreement.