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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 - 02:17pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#737 of 741)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The solution might not be so simple as this. rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am

But I'm not sure why the proposal, or something like it, wouldn't work. For the 60 billion dollars we're proposing to spend on missile defense alone, you could iron out a lot of problems, and do a lot of policing.

And do a lot of public relations - making reintroduction of nuclear weapons anathema - something necessary for a long term solution to nuclear terror.

The proposal would also free up a lot of very capable engineers who could be well employed elsewhere. Many might be deployed in making nonnuclear weapons that could defend nation states effectively in the new, faster electronic world. The old defenses, even at the best, leave us all much to vulnerable.

lunarchick - 03:15pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#738 of 741)
lunarchick@www.com

The idea of redeployment of engineers is interesting. To be tied to a job that offers few positive achievements would be attractive long-term to only those of a particular nature and character .. burner stokers.

Engineers say "Detail your problem and then let us look for solutions to fix it".

There are a lot of problems in the world to which engineers might give attention. There is and always will be a world shortage of engineers, an injection of whom can raise the real wealth, in terms of both productive and social accounting, of any country they work within.

rshowalter - 03:29pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#739 of 741)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You're right, Dawn. Nothing so frustrating as to be locked into a project that isn't really going anywhere -- especially if people ask you to shade results to "make the worse appear the better cause."

There are PLENTY of things for engineers working on Star Wars N to do, in the defense industry, and elsehere. We need weapons systems that work well, in an environment quite different from that or 25 years ago.

rshowalter - 03:34pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#740 of 741)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are reasons to doubt the usefulness of Missile Defense as currently possible, and beckvaa , who I believe is W.J. Clinton, set up discussion of some of them in

We need an international missle system now - Why son of Star Wars is a good idea. ---Guardian TALK . . . and especially #9

I set up a story, that I think casts light on our nuclear circumstances in Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror .... Gaurdian TALK . . . . most entertainingly, in #13- #23

Dawn Riley and I asked some questions about human nature in Mankinds Inhumanity to Man and Woman - As natural as human goodness? .... Guardian TALK . . .

That argument was summarized with a more positive slant in a thread started by Beckvaa, .....MEN ARE NATURALLY GOOD

rshowalter - 03:44pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#741 of 741)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The problems of "paradigm conflict" - systematically different views of the same facts, from different human groups, seems evident in nuclear defense. We and the Russians do not see eye to eye -- and the differences can be garish and dangerous. We need to acknowledge that these differences are real, try to resolve some of them, and endeavor to live with the others.

Dawn Riley and I have done a great deal of work getting a better understanding of paradigm conflict than we believe existed before. I feel it is directly relevant to the problems of nuclear policy - which is a dangerous paradigm conflict impasse.

Paradigm Shift .... whose getting there? .... Summary

Paradigm Shift#300

......... and especially a distinguished article about bureaucratic frustration, and chain breakers A Lost Cause ..... by John Kay

CHECKING is an essential, difficult issue in paradigm conflicts:

Especially where power relations are involved, checking must be MORALLY FORCING

Specialized institutional responses to the impasse problem may be needed. An approach is suggested here.

If some basic facts could be checked, especially about the existence and dynamics of mistrust between our nation states, the problems of nuclear terror find solutions of disciplined beauty.

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