[109339] in Cypherpunks
Dual use airbags
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Frederick Burroughs)
Fri Mar 19 01:32:10 1999
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:14:10 -0500
From: Frederick Burroughs <riburr@shentel.net>
To: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@ns.minder.net>
Reply-To: Frederick Burroughs <riburr@shentel.net>
The independent review of the CIA's internal assessment of national
security damage caused by technology transfer to China is yielding
surprising results. Allegations have been made that US national weapons
laboratories were a source of nuclear weapons technology leaked to
China. However, some unexpected sources of weapons technology transfer
have been uncovered by the review.
1980's era satellite and human reconnaissance of chinese weapons testing
sites have perplexed US intelligence agencies for years. These sources
revealed a series of chinese nuclear weapons tests that involved
surrounding the explosive device with late model passenger vehicles! A
variety of clustering and assemblages were used. At the time, the CIA
could offer no explanations other than overzealous testing of vehicle
crash worthiness.
The tests evolved from using large american passenger cars to smaller
japanese and chinese (taiwanese) models. Eventually only car components
were used, mostly bumpers and airbags. The Chinese were particularly
interested in using airbags. Many tests, both conventional and nuclear,
involved the use of these devices. Less astute US intelligence analysts
thought the tests ludicrous, wondering if the chinese were testing the
feasibility of using airbags as a missile defense strategy.
Meanwhile, a debate was raging in the US over whether to mandate the
installation of airbags into american production vehicles. Proponents
insisted that airbags save lives, opponents sited unreliability and
expense. The independent review now suggests another reason for the
opposition; controlling the spread of dual use technology.
National security experts knew that the sensors and control circuits
used to measure deceleration and toggle the firing and deployment of an
airbag could, with modification, be used as a trigger for a nuclear
device. Similar triggering mechanisms were used to reduce the size of
american nuclear weapon designs. Precise and synchronized detonation of
high explosive charges, performed by the triggering circuits, force the
fissile material to go critical. More precise detonation results in more
efficient use of high explosive charges. The result; smaller nuclear
weapons. The spin-off; airbags.
The US government was not blind to the dual use inherent in airbag
technology and stalled the requirement for installation of airbags into
cars until 1994, when a phase in began. A judgment had also been
stalled: Was it more important to save lives on american highways or
prevent the spread of dual use technology? How many lives were lost
because airbags were not required in cars? What was the gain in national
security by allowing those lives to be lost? It was only after airbags
became widely available to consumers (and the Chinese) that airbag
installation was made law.
Now Congress is blaming Clinton for Chinese advances in the design of
nuclear weapons, made years before his inauguration, and based on airbag
technology. The only thing missing in this scenario is common sense, the
truth, and Ken Starr.
This report has been assigned a gullibility factor of ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)
