New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

possumdag - 07:37am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4810 of 4838)
Possumdag@excite.com

ON colours, those that interest me are the White:Purple:Green of the women's movement. Here the white stands for the DOVE of peace.

rshowalter - 07:44am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4811 of 4838)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Wonderful things on the editorial and OpEd pages of the New York Times today. They bear thinking about.

A question I'd have, especially with respect to the Robert Strauss piece .... Engaging With Russia http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/opinion/12STRA.html is this:

To what degree are necessary fictions -- especially extreme fictions in the cause of "social politeness" useful - or in the public interest?

In what sense can, or should, Putin and Bush "trust" each other?

"Trust" , like "threat" and some other words -- is a treacherous word. It can be used to mean exact opposites, without making clear which meaning is operative in context. It can mean "you can check me" -- but can also mean "you can't check me." In the first sense, trust is good - in the second - intolerably dangerous between nation states.

I don't think it makes any sense at all for Russia to deny that it has faults - but neither does it make sense for Russia to defer to either the judgement, or the "superior morality" of the US, or George W. Bush personally.

It seems to me, and has for many years, that when competent American professionals meet each other -- in situations where cooperation and competitions are both issues -- they ask, routinely, in the ways that matter for the interaction, two questions:

1. How can I "kill" this guy, cleanly and neatly, in the ways that matter here?

and

2. How can I "please" this guy, effectively, in the ways that matter here?

In complex circumstances, there are many such questions, asked step by step, and the good negotiators and professionals I've seen in action ask them. And, in my experience, the pros only proceed when they have worked through reasonable answers to these questions, step by step -- so that they when they are under pressure, they have alternatives to act on, or relate their logic and expectations to.

Putin and his staff, I believe, should think these matters through, in this spirit, and decide, in view of all the circumstances, including the wishes of other nations, how it wishes to proceed, in its interactions with George W. Bush, and the Unites States as a nation and a government.

Bush, the nation, and the US governement are not the same.

Deference, or participation in "photo-ops" that convey a significantly misleading impression - don't seem to me to be right answers.

We face situations so complex that they are hopeless unless decisions are made on the basis of facts and models that are as correct as we can reasonably make them.

I'm no expert here. If Putin could get advice on how to proceed from the Queen of England, or someone trusted and of rank in the Privy council, I believe it would make sense to do so.

possumdag - 07:45am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4812 of 4838)
Possumdag@excite.com

http://www.feminist.com/askamy/womhist/wh42.html

possumdag - 07:48am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4813 of 4838)
Possumdag@excite.com

http://userpages.aug.com/haywire/colors.html

rshowalter - 08:00am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4814 of 4838)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If Russians were clearer, both about what they could agree with about Thomas L. Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree , and how they disagreed, that would help make cooperation and reasonable competition between Russia and other nations possible. The relation between military power and economic and political power is under discussion this week.

MD867 rshowalter 3/8/01 5:51am .... MD868 rshowalter 3/8/01 5:54am

Friedman's Zorba the Euro http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/opinion/12FRIE.html is interesting in these regards, and distinguished. But he makes a false dichotomy -- or an overstated one, when he describes "the most interesting clash going on around Europe today — the clash between two grand theories."

Freidman "can report that Fukuyama is winning in Greece — but Huntington is putting up a good fight."

In the real, complex, multifacted world, of course, it is not that simple -- and in the complexity of reality there is much more hope than Friedman implies. In some significant areas -- straight capitalist economics can win -- and in the same nation, collectivism, and nationally specific cultures, can be unchallenged in specific, clear, and important spheres.

possumdag - 08:14am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4815 of 4838)
Possumdag@excite.com

Friedman hasn't worked out that the Greeks have most nights out in restaurants because .... they've smashed all the plates at home .. the weather's a warming factor for cafe dining. Environment and culture to the fore!

possumdag - 08:17am Jun 12, 2001 EST (#4816 of 4838)
Possumdag@excite.com

The reality with the common market is that it takes years for cultures to 'come into line' with Brussels ... there's a love-hate, hate-love tension that gets nationals 'thinking' and may be healthy. That Brussels edges up the quality standards is fact.

(22 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense