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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 - 08:28pm Apr 12, 2001 EST (#2198 of 2200)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 4/12/01 8:17pm points out some good reasons why Americans, and other westerners, don't like the Chinese. (Russians and Chinese often don't get along personally or organizationally either.)

Some of the cruelties of Chinese history, especially this century, are truly fearful. Chinese leadership is working to maintain control, in a culture that values control, at the same time that it is striving to enter the prosperous and hopeful world that the 21st century offers.

There are good reasons for all concerned to be careful here.

This is clear --- the more fighting responses, and xenophobia, and warlike responses, can be supplanted by economic means, the better off everybody is likely to be.

This is also clear -- lies are expensive, and threatening, and China would be better off, and more trusted, if she told fewer of them, and if she found ways to be more open.

China can be less threatened, and she should be. She should also be less threatening, and more adept at complex, nuanced cooperations that might make problems such as the China - Taiwan difficulty more easily resolvable.

China sometimes acts to pick fights when, if she knew more, she could find a more graceful way.

The same could be said of the United States, as well.

rshowalter - 08:37pm Apr 12, 2001 EST (#2199 of 2200)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 4/12/01 8:24pm -- there is bargaining to do.

We need solutions, and solution processes, of disciplined beauty here, and so do the Russians, the Chinese, and all other nations who have to care about nuclear safety, and the more general questions of safety, prosperity and peace.

rshowalter 2/9/01 1:53pm

rshowalter 2/9/01 1:56pm

quote from a Stephen Myers article:

"While Mr. Bush did not specify limits on the warheads in the shield, he pledged to seek "the lowest possible number consistent with our national security."

With care and hard work, I hope that minimum number can reach or approach zero. For that to happen, a lot of hard work will have to occur, and a lot of new, disciplined beauty will have to come into being.

rshowalter - 08:50pm Apr 12, 2001 EST (#2200 of 2200)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I still feel that, after a thorough staffing so that facts were established, something like the pattern set out in #266-269, this thread, rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am might be part of a workable solution that would give the world practical nuclear disarmament and military stability. Or that such an approach might suggest something that would be part of such a practical solution.

A solution to these human problems ought to be something reasonable people can reasonably hope for, work for, and achieve.

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