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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?

cookiess0 - 10:55am May 1, 2001 EST (#2881 of 2887)

You need to stop blabbering, take your pills, and go check on your 401K. After that you can wait for the mail-man.

rshowalter - 11:37am May 1, 2001 EST (#2882 of 2887)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This a rewrite of a posting that contained language that I now regret, and have now deleted:

We need to make serious efforts to get nuclear weapons down. To outlaw them (and this is as much a moral as a legal problem.)

We need to act so that we do not give other people reason to hate us - reason to want to harm us. A part of security is the ability to threaten -- certainly. But another part of security, in the world, is to conduct oneself so that others do not hate us. The United States government, too often, acts in ways that make us hated.

George W. Bush, right now, is giving people reason to resent our unilateralism and our threats -- reason to hate us.

That's exactly the opposite of what he should be doing --- and exactly the opposite of what, in other areas, he knows to do.

The world needs peace, civility --- not bullying threatening with nuclear weapons.

We need peacemaking.

And we need to get some very pervasive, longstanding corruption, moral and financial, under control.

Other countries are looking, and may find ways to help us -- simply by standing up and insisting on consultation, reciprocity, and a reasonable balance, at all levels, between the United States and other nations.

rshowalter - 11:53am May 1, 2001 EST (#2883 of 2887)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Although I've not always been a fan of Bush's, the information in this article is consistent with things that might be very good, for the nation and the world. (It is also consistent with some very bad outcomes, depending on decisions not yet made.)

Bush Calls Putin in Attempt to Pave Way on Missile Plan by DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/01/world/01CND-MISSILE.html

It begins with a good step:

WASHINGTON, May 1 -- President Bush called the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, today as part of his effort to pave the diplomatic path for the administration's missile defense system and the possibility of eventually renouncing the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

It is certainly true tthat the 1972 ABM treatey may eventually have to be modified or renounced. It has been a long time.

There' s a very good line in the piece:

" We need to rethink the concept of deterrence that was in the past based on massive nuclear retaliation,"

And it ends with reference to a very good, powerful team:

" The delegation that will be sent to describe Mr. Bush's thinking to American allies, and to Russia, will be led by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, officials said.

The man best placed, in the whole world, to make a lasting peace, and maximize the security and prosperity of the US and the rest of the world, is George W. Bush.

scootair - 11:55am May 1, 2001 EST (#2884 of 2887)

Bush proposes to throw money at a weapon system that has consistently failed highly contrived, unrealistic tests. According to independent experts (most notably Ted Postal from MIT) it is highly dubious that it will ever be able to accompolish it's stated mission.

In the Times yesterday, an Administration source stated that it's not important that it be an "air tight" defense against even a small attack (unless you are on the receiving end of it) , only that it put doubts in mind of a potential agressor.

I've never heard such a crock of dung. They propose spending what will doubtlesly be hundreds of BILLIONS (the way the Pentagon does businees) of tax dollars over the coming decades. The truth is, this is all about money. Dick Cheney was on the board of TRW (big Star Wars contractor), his wife Lynne is on the board of Lockheed Martin, Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley's Washington law firm represents Lockheed Martin and Sec Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been a Star Wars industry darling since he invented the N Korean missile threat as leader of the congressionally mandated Rumsfeld Commission.

These operatives for the weapons industry will all be safely ensconced back in the boardrooms of their benefactors in 4-8 years enjoying the lagress of the massive corporate gravey train that they are about to start rolling. The rest of us will be stuck with the 6,000 plus nuclear warheads apiece that the US and Russia currently have, an arms race in SE Asia (China, India, Pakistan), and a modern Marginot Line that will do nothing to stop the most likely threat-a nuclear or biological weapon smuggled in by boat, plane, train or backpack.

go to www.peace-action to help stop this dangerous boondoggle

applez0 - 12:08pm May 1, 2001 EST (#2885 of 2887)

BTW, it is 'Maginot' Line - and yes, NMD will be as expensive and useless as that predecessor. :)

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