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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 - 07:34am Mar 7, 2001 EST (#852 of 854)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This much of the response makes sense to post here.

rshowalter - 06:26pm Mar 6, 2001 BST (#908

Let me give it a shot. I'm working on the same class of problems (with detailed differences) in three areas, and four separate cases.

They look much the same to me.

I'll concentrate on the Middle East here, but refer to the other areas, in a sort of triangulation - so that generalizations can be applied to multiple cases. That sometimes clarifies what a generalization means.

The four cases are:

1. Trying to get to a workable solution of the impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis, as they are, with the past as it actually is.

2. Trying to resolve the nuclear terror in the world, which may otherwise destroy the world, with the nation states as they are, and with the past as it actually is.

and two smaller scale cases

3. Trying to resolve a matter in construction of mathematical models from physical circumstances, that involves a "paradigm impasse" -- with mathematicians as they are, with the last 350 years as they have been, and with the constraints of math and science as they are.

and

4. Trying to modify some neuroscience and neural medicine, on the basis of a corrected transmission equation based on the subject of (3) with neuroscientists and medicos as they are, and the histories of the fields as they are.

Each of these cases is insoluble in practical human terms on the basis of "full logical connection and detailed justice" -- each requires a reframing, a "redemptive solution."

I'm using the notion of "redemption" in a strictly secular sense here. No diety should have to concern herself with the solution of these problems. Human beings should be able to sort them out amongst themselves.

. . . . .

3 and 4 are VERY far along toward full solution - and these situations will probably be resolved in a disciplined, beautiful way, at little cost to anybody involved, and with real benefits to all involved.

1 and 2 are more intractable, but look like they can be decently resolved, too -- given a degree of human wisdom that people manage to apply, every day, to many other problems.

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Impster - 06:30pm Mar 6, 2001 BST (#910

rsho,

I'll be waiting.

rshowalter - 07:37am Mar 7, 2001 EST (#853 of 854)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter - 06:40pm Mar 6, 2001 BST (#911

In every case, resolution requires a matter-of-fact acknowledgement that the people involved are human animals, "a little lower than the angels."

An especially important part of this is an acknowledgement that all involved

- can sometimes be mistaken;

- all involved sometimes decieve;

- and all involved are sometimes decieved themselves.

Redemptive solutions require that, during key points in the negotiation, and at the end of it - people agree on basic facts.

Everybody must be "reading from the same page" -- everybody must know the same facts in the most basic objective ways, ---though often with very different feelings about those facts.