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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?

gisterme - 09:10pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4786 of 4794)

So, how do Russia and the USA get a win-win deal ... certainly not through continually spewing up the past ... although it has to be understood from all perspectives ... the win-win has to come via negotiated deals and settlements that allow peaceful economic growth .. with lots of cross-cultural interchanges of international understanding.

Awesome post lunarchick. That's a great observation.

lunarchick - 09:15pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4787 of 4794)
lunarchick@www.com

In one sense there is 'popular universal culture' where people within a global time frame have much commonality.

In another sense there is 'national macro culture' that fits the locally structured environment.

Brought up on a farm - it had it's own 'mirco culture' - this one was most aware of when visiting kids came and totally lacked appreciation of the codes, conventions, safety requirements, conservation, and weather pattern dictates.

The reality is that people walking on new ground have to tread carefully and with understanding.

The internet helps combine all three aspects above, enabling access to a wide overview and yet offering appreciation of the smaller yet important detail.

rshowalter - 09:21pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4788 of 4794)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Internet posts, with serious people, look a lot like court transcripts -- and are interesting for similar reasons. You see human minds, linked to serious purposes, and interests, groping for meanings that can convince themselves and others, for real stakes, in public, subject to evidence.

But more evidence and complexity can be mustered, and constraints of space and time are relaxed with the new technogy.

The fit to the human mind, and human communications, is pretty good -- and both the strengths and limits of the discourse are the usual human ones -- that have been basically the same as long as people have been people.

rshowalter - 09:22pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4789 of 4794)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think these records, which are now so easily preserved, should be preserved.

lunarchick - 09:29pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4790 of 4794)
lunarchick@www.com

Russia is said to have the most advanced 'sense of humour' on the planet. They've needed it! Everyone knows the Russian group of entertainers/singers who poked fun at the soviet collective farm (tractor) system .. they are on the net ... what they did was 'send up' the system, and it's faults.

Humor again runs (international:Macro:Micro).

Initially it's the international or visual humor that is understood ... the finer aspects may never be assimilated.

When a country, or group within a new country, has the maturity to turn around and make fun of itself - that's a signifier of a settled peace.

I always understood this guy to have a Russian background David Daniel Kaminski he certainly understood humor and had international appeal.

mgpayne - 09:38pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4791 of 4794)

The USA is one of, if not the only country in the world that is capable of building a modern day sheild. It would be fair to say that if the USA chose to put down its sword in order to take up this sheild that such action is favorable in upholding our modern democratic culture. But as the rest of the world, i fear that this sheild will exist to protect and provide advantage, enabling the USA to hide behind its walls and still continue to use its force to dominate beyond them. In momentarily spewing up the past we can learn from our mistakes, we can see that walls are not the answer, nor have they ever been. We should be striving to bring down the ones we have. In considering such defence systems we should ask ourselves one question, are we building a sheild or creating a wall?

rshowalter - 09:42pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4792 of 4794)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If both sides assumed that they were likely to misunderstand each other, for a while, it would be safer.

The American and Russian culture are very different.

I can remember one thing clearly -- again and again, years ago, I found myself liking the Russian mathematicians better.

Sometimes the Russian engineers, too - though they did little things sloppily -- they did the big things well.

Americans, too often, did the little things superbly -- but made many BIG decisions pretty sloppily.

One thing's clear - both cultures are complex, they are very different -- and neither culture understands itself particularly well -- or the other culture at all.

And we have nuclear weapons pointed at each other -- pointed because of hatred, and fear, and an inability to communicate without unpredictable exposions and fights.

We should make changes -- many changes -- in our relationship. But carefully . And gently.

And we should not assume that we have a meeting of the minds at all easily.

Too often, we don't.

rshowalter - 09:43pm Jun 11, 2001 EST (#4793 of 4794)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Out for tonight.

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