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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

lunarchick - 02:46am Oct 3, 2000 EDT (#370 of 396)
Barrier Reef - not the place4 - NUKE SUBs !

A question regarding time. It's been Five and a half decades since two A-bombs were released over Japan, which knows nuclear is a non-sustainable concept. Why don't other countries accept this stance?

A second question to ask is 'why haven't the bodies established to eliminate missiles worldwide achieved this goal via knowledge dissemination'?

lunarchick - 09:23pm Oct 3, 2000 EDT (#371 of 396)
Barrier Reef - not the place4 - NUKE SUBs !

I note the big DEBATE is on in the States today ... from a distance it's not easy to determine their respective policies re ND.

rshowalt - 04:48am Oct 4, 2000 EDT (#372 of 396)

There was dead silence on the point. A silence that the people at the Global Security Institute http://www.gsinstitute the Fourth Freedom Forum http://www.fourthfreedom.org and http://www.responsiblesecurity.org

the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation http://www.wagingpeace.org

and many other organizations (not least, the United Nations ) are trying to penetrate.

In the NE edition of the NYT, on page A7b there was a very impressive full page ad from Alan Cranston's Global Security Institute with an enormously impressive list of people, including senior military, nuclear arms talk, and CIA people, many Republicans, in support (see their web site) of a statement that read as follows.

"An Appeal to End the Nuclear Threat: Concerned Americans Speak Out Now is the Time

" The end of the Cold War has offered the most promising opportunity since the advent of nuclear arms in 1945 to free the world from nuclear danger.

" Instead we witness the spread of nuclear weapon technology and the deepening crisis of the nuclear arms control regime fashioned by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

" To take advantage of the new opportunity and avert the new perils, we call upon the United States goverment to commit itself unequivocally to negotiate the worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons, in a series of well defined stages accompanied by increasing verification and control. As immediate steps along that path, we urge the global de-alerting of nuclear weapons and deep reductions in nuclear stockpiles."

There was a major, very well organized press conference in Boston by the group that took out this ad, and a major effort to add questions from credentialled press people in the audience at the debate was vigorously pursued. At the debate, there WERE no questions from the audience.

Maybe something useful at the level of negotiation is going on. I hope so.

If ideas in this thread, or elsewhere in these forums, have effected what is happening, I'm glad and the TIMES should be proud. This is America, we are in the new internet age, and such things happen.

rshowalt - 04:55am Oct 4, 2000 EDT (#373 of 396)

I think that world nuclear disarmament could proceed very quickly, and set out a proposal for doing it from #266-269 of this thread. rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am

Dialog since, I believe, has tended to support this proposal.

If the proposal has one central insight that I feel is vital, it is this. Nuclear weapons are so threatening and primal that we must expect deep distrust, and fear of first strike tricks. We shouldn't dehumanize each other by denying this.

We should face up to the fact of distrust, and act accordingly. We can take these pernicious weapons down if we make VERY sure that it is happening without tricks.

I suggest major bugging, in clear, of the leaders of both sides, and an exchange of high level hostages, as workable assurances against these tricks, that both sides must reasonably fear, because of the kinds of animals we all are. With those practical assurances, I believe that the elimination of these weapons could be done (as far as the issues of danger go) in weeks.

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