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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 - 10:18am May 3, 2001 EST (#3127 of 3130)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

cookiess0 5/3/01 9:52am The best solution, as many people have said for many years, is nuclear (not conventional) disarmament. The United States, by treaty, is committed to try to achieve nuclear disarmament.

Serious, unsentimental thought needs to be directed to making a nuclear free world - stable.

I think that total nuclear disarmament is possible, and could be practical.

I set that out in 266-269, which starts b"Ridding the world of nuclear weapons this year, or next year. What would have to happen? "
rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am

It proposes another "unthinkable" to think about -- the degree of international cooperation, and international consensus, that a stable nuclear disarmament might take. I'm siting the part about cooperation and consensus here, because we all want to reduce nuclear risk, and disarmament is one way. -

"After full nuclear disarmament of the U.S. and Russia, the US and Russia, working together, and with their conventional military forces intact, would see to it, through ordinary negotiation and the coordinated use of force, that other nuclear weapon holding nations destroyed their nuclear weapons, in ways that could be clearly checked.

"Rogue nuclear forces would be hunted down, with Russia, the US, and other forces acting in coordination to confiscate their nuclear weapons, and with rogues punished in memorable ways.

. . . . .

"To motivate this nuclear disarmament, the following things would have to happen.

"People would have to see how bad nuclear weapons are, and how first use of nuclear weapons is worse than anything that Hitler did. IT IS NOT ALL RIGHT TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

"For effective elimination of nuclear weapons, and to establish conditions so that they stay eliminated, I believe that artists and other people must make it memorably clear how bad nuclear weapons are, so that no one wants to make them again. So that no one condones their use again. If people remember this, anyone trying to make a nuclear weapon is overwhelmingly likely to be caught and punished. It should be the tradition that the property rights and moral rights of anyone making nuclear weapons should be dismissed, and any and all force mobilized to prevent the building of nuclear weapons or their use.

lunarchick - 10:18am May 3, 2001 EST (#3128 of 3130)
lunarchick@www.com

Achillies had a heel!

rshowalter - 10:19am May 3, 2001 EST (#3129 of 3130)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Repeat: "It should be the tradition that the property rights and moral rights of anyone making nuclear weapons should be dismissed, and any and all force mobilized to prevent the building of nuclear weapons or their use." For instance, in nuclear weapons were prohibited effectively, that might mean that a Saddam, who refused to permit inspections, might have to have all international protections removed from him as a world leader -- assasination on him, and other officers of his government, might have to be specifically permitted.

That would require a modification of the general prohibition on assasination that grew out of WWI experience. That is an "unthinkable," among a number of possible "unthinkables" that we may need to consider as we work toward a world that can survive, and be as free as possible from nuclear horrors.

When we say: "nuclear prohibition can't work" -- we need to consider that, if we changed some rules, the "can't work" conclusion might change.

I'm very glad that Bush's NMD initiative, which I think wrong on many grounds, has focused attention on the issue of nuclear peril. Bush's particular solution may not be workable -- and I think it is not.

But much better solutions might actually be practical -- and the NMD debate may be useful as a way of getting to them.

rshowalter - 10:21am May 3, 2001 EST (#3130 of 3130)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Disarmament doesn't have to be an impractical and "sentimental" option.

For nuclear disarmament to work, it would have to be workable ... prohibition with teeth.

For NMD to be any good in deployment, it has to work too.

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