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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 - 08:19am Mar 14, 2001 EST (#985 of 986)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

When things are ugly, they need a fresh look. rshowalter 3/10/01 1:14pm

In the interest of US military forces, and the interests of the United States, and in the interests of the world, we need to get to factually correct answers, and to find redemptive solutions when the alternative is to be in situations that cannot be resolved with a humanly workable justice rshowalter 3/1/01 4:32pm

In complex, conflicted situations, beautiful justice is impossible. There are multiple contexts, each inescapable and in a fundamental sense valid.

An aesthetically satisfying justice can be defined for each and every set of assumptions and perspectives that can be defined. But there are too many sets of assumptions and perspectives that cannot be escaped in the complex circumstances that are actually there. . . .. .. . .

The situations Rosenberg describes, where she hungers for justice, do not admit of satisfactory justice. They are too complicated. . . . . . What is needed, for logical reasons that are fundamentally secular rather than religious, is redemption. rshowalter 2/27/01 6:03pm

With the incentives and coercive realities that are brought to bear on the people involved, the Osprey situation is not one that fits ideas of "simple justice."

rshowalter - 08:25am Mar 14, 2001 EST (#986 of 986)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

But in the end, right answers need to be found. And a rigid position such as General Jones' statement below can be terribly counterproductive.

- ``I would resist with all my moral fiber the idea that we would willingly or knowingly try to bring aboard a program -- the V-22 or anything else -- that we've so fallen in love with that we would put people at risk,'' he said. ``We just simply wouldn't do that, and I don't think we've done that.''

To take that position is to tie up an admirable and necessary military service in a web of unsustainable lies, to no good purpose. Military officers put people at risk all the time. They prepare for war. In war, they order people to die in battle. They do their duty, when it involves their own death. In both war and peace, they coerce each other, and make fallible judgements under complicated and conflicted circumstances. How else could they do their job? And they are subject to all of the normal human weaknesses.

To deny that is to commit necessary forces to patterns of conduct that make them much more vulnerable, and much weaker, than they have to. And to deny that is to encourage, perhaps with the best of intentions, conduct that can be corrupting, and as injuriuos to the country as a willing betrayal might be.