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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 08:10pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4500 of 4508)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

94-95 of the Paradigm Shift - whose getting there? thread are interesting too. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7726f/119

I like this passage especially:

from Science and Government In Ch 11:

“ We can collect quite a lot of working tips from the Tizard-Lindemann story. For instance, the prime importance, in any crisis of action, of being positive, and being able to explain it. It is not so relevant whether you are right or wrong. That is a second-order effect. But it is cardinal that you should be positive. In the radar struggle Tizard and his committee were positive that theirs was the only hope and Lindemann had only quibbles and fragmentary ideas to set against it. Over bombing, Lindemann was positive that he had the recipe to win the war. Tizard was sure that he was wrong, but had nothing so simple and unified to put in its place. Even at the highest levels of decision, men do not really relish the complexity of brute reality, and will hare after a simple concept whenever one shows its head.”

Let me repeat the part that haunts me most: "the prime importance, in any crisis of action, of being positive, and being able to explain it. It is not so relevant whether you are right or wrong. That is a second-order effect. But it is cardinal that you should be positive."

A crucial practical and moral problem is that people can be subjectively certain, simple, clear, and still wrong. So can groups be. This is a practical difficulty of crucial importance.

The difficulty has moral-operational and intellectual aspects. The problem is primarily an intellectual rather than a moral problem, in the sense that, if the difficulty was understood, the moral and operational solutions would be found directly.

There would be many possible solutions, linked to circumstances.

Some of the procedures on this thead, well enough staffed, might suffice in many cases.

almarst-2001 - 10:23pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4501 of 4508)

rshowalter 6/4/01 7:01am

"When I had a conversation with a person at CIA, last september, related to the proposal, this thread, MD266-269, rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am it was clear that after the committee discussion, they wanted to be especially clear that I advocated nuclear rather than total disarmament. So far as I could gather, they didn't have a clue what the United States needed such a large military for. "

Robert,

Two points:

- First, You can confess I was not present on this meeting;)

- Second, They know perfectly well why the conventional military should be kept out of any disarmament discussion.

The MD fits exactly in my view, into this line of thinking:

The nuclear war is not an option - even the victorious side will be left with a poisoned desert as a trophy. The nuclear MAD is the only quarantee today against the US aggression and deterent before its overhelming conventional military superiority. Using the aicraft cariers, long range stealth bombers, cruse missiles and military bases all over the glob, the US can attack any country practically with impunity, if not for a MAD. Morover, such an attack using "smart" stand-off wearpons can preserve the valuable resources of a country, only forsing it to succumb to whatever dictate the US will want. Akin the electric shocking devices used in US prisons. The US wants to control the markets and natural and human resources, not deserts.

That's in my view, the grand plan the MD fits quite nicely, accompanied with a pressure for nuclear disarmament put on all the rest of the World.

Just think about such a great propaganda opportunity of the Peace-loving, nukes-rejecting America...

The "humanitarian" bombings will be followed by a bombings of those, trying to aquaire the MAD protection.

almarst-2001 - 10:42pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4502 of 4508)

gisterme 6/4/01 2:16pm

"Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not payback at all, almarst. They were the result of a strategic military decision that sacreficed a couple of hundred thousand Japanese, to save a total of millions on both sides and bring that war to an end. Where's the crime in that? "

"Where's the crime in that?"

There is very little more criminal, that can be invented. May be only the "first strike" targeting the civilian population and infrastructure, while protected by a MD umbrella, "to prevent the possible future war".

I expected that even the cold-blood murderer deep inside knows that he is commiting a crime. Wrong expectation. At least in this case.

almarst-2001 - 10:56pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4503 of 4508)

"If, after checking, the options you set out above were the real options -- then dropping the bomb would have made sense."

As much of a sence as to kill someone sick or particularelly terminally ill.

The RATIONAL criminal is the worst one yet invented. The reall cold-blood hired killer. I will be very hard pressed to think of the worst. Again, computer instead of a brain and a wallet instead of a heart - that's seems to be the the virtues dear to gisterme.

It was my understanding that in many ways, the thing we call civilization orders us to behave "irrationaly" to remain moral.

Even the animals behave "irrational", defending their newborns against much stronger adversary, including the worst of predators.

gisterme,

I wonder, What is your understanding of moral is?

almarst-2001 - 11:14pm Jun 4, 2001 EST (#4504 of 4508)

All the notes of "usefulness" and "rationality" of the mass-targeting civilians in the war just convinces me that US and Britain are capable to commit ANY crime in the war. And gave me just another glimps into the minds of the people of the nations that count themselve as a pinacle of civilization.

(4 following messages)

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