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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?

olaf_helmer - 01:00pm May 2, 2001 EST (#2993 of 2997)

Bush's Maginot Line The missile defense system proposed by the Bush Administration is objectionable for at least three different reasons. (1) It requires the renunciation of the ABM Treaty, which had been entered into in the age of massive nuclear arsenals as a means of averting a further arms race, - the obvious idea being that a potential enemy's anti-ballistic missile defense may be countered by augmenting one's own force of nuclear missiles. Coupled with the doctrine of mutually assured destruction ("MAD"), which had become accepted by the heads of the major nuclear powers, this gave us a half-century of nuclear peace. To abandon this policy at a time where several "rogue" nations, headed by less-than-sane leaders, aspire to join the club of massive nuclear arsenal proprietors is of dubious value. (2) The cost of the proposed enterprise is going to be formidable, with $100 billion a modest estimate. This expenditure, unless we are willing to increase our national debt rather than diminishing it, will eat into other, possibly much more important projects, such as modernizing our non-nuclear fighting capability or our civilian infrastructure. (3) Perhaps most importantly, the pursuit of an anti-missile defense system represents the kind of Maginot-Line of thinking that proved so disastrous for the French two-thirds of a century ago. Why would a rogue dictator, intent on inflicting devastation upon the United States, go to the immense expense of building up a missile delivery system when it would be so much easier to use terrorist methods of introducing a hand- or ship-carried weapon of mass destruction (nuclear or chemical or biological) into one of our major ports of entry? While a missile-delivered weapon would not fail to advertise its point of origin and thus imply an eradicative counter-blow, a clandestine delivery would have the enormous additional advantage that the point of origin would not be obvious and thus be less suicidal in nature. In summary, a better and more urgent way to strengthen our national security might be to allocate resources, not to a futile anti-missile defense system, but to an order-of-magnitude improvement in coping with potential terrorist attacks.

rshowalter - 01:00pm May 2, 2001 EST (#2994 of 2997)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Berle's Laws of Power are basic -- and ideas (and facts) therefore count, when they can be established. rshowalter 3/12/01 10:02am

That's a key power of journalism -- and journalism allows itself to be weakened, and corrupted in terms of its basic ideals, when it allows checking mechanisms to be degraded, as they have been by the usages of the Cold War.

rshowalter - 01:05pm May 2, 2001 EST (#2995 of 2997)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We need prohibition of nuclear weapons, with teeth. I made some unsentimental suggestions, including some about enforcement, on September 25th.
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:33am
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:35am
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am

If Americans wanted nuclear disarmament, and were willing to pay attention to some core issues, this could be done -- and the world would be safer, cleaner, and much more prosperous than it is.

ktaucer01 - 01:07pm May 2, 2001 EST (#2996 of 2997)

Well now on the surface, the Reagan re-do is complete. Reagan wanted and got a massive tax cut-BushII wanted and got a massive tax cut; Reagan wanted weakening of environmental laws-Bush is trying to weaken environmental laws;Reagan unleashed the military and build it up to wartime levels-Bush also is trying to retool the military and reemphasize military solutions to diplomatic problems(witness current confrontations with China/Iraq/N.Korea); Reagan emphasized supply side solutions to the energy problem-Bush just announced through Cheney that the extraction industry will be in charge of energy policy ;Reagan packed the judiciary with ultra rightists-Bush will attempt the same in the comming weeks and finally Reagan tried to build a Star Wars program-Bush just announced a simmilar program. NOT A SINGLE NEW IDEA, all hold overs from an earlier era. It is now crystal clear , Bush is just a Reagan mini-me WITH_OUT the commpassion. And that craveat will have major implications for the country... However one felt about the policys of Reagan, and I certainly did not agree with much Reagan did with his presidency, one had to admit that he was a man of great personal compassion for the common man. Every biographer or individual who knew him ,and I personally have the close aquaintence of at least two such individuals who knew him as a young man in Dixion Ill., report that Reagan never forgot his roots as common soul and had a genuine feeling for the plight of the underdog. Bush on the otherhand is the scoin of great wealth, has NEVER had to struggle for anything nor has anyone to my knowlege, been able to demonstrate that he has a feeling for the common person on any level. Therefor Iam confident, that when the history of GWB is finally written, Bush's sad attempts at emulating Reagan will be seen to have brought all the hardships to the working class that Reagan's policys caused without generating the feelings of shared accomplishment that the country enjoyed during the Reagan era.

gisterme - 01:09pm May 2, 2001 EST (#2997 of 2997)

rshowalter wrote "...The US, perhaps with some help from other nations, has to admit to some lies, and some missteps done by a very small, extraconstitutional group..."

Okay, Robert, I'll bite. What are the lies, the missteps and who is the very small extraconstitutional group?

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