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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?

gisterme - 01:38pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3226 of 3258)

rshowalter wrote: "...We need, I believe, to be more able to combat the evils you set out just above. We need, in essential ways, more capable military forces..."

How much more capable were the military forces of Britain, France and America than those of Germany five years after the end of WWI? They were vastly more capable. Did that clear military superiority prevent the rise of Hitler? Nope.

So long as we humans are prone to deception, that kind of evil has the potential to flourish.

Trying to preempt evil via military power or any other kind of physical force is like tilting at windmills. It makes little sense.

Physical power is neutral...kind of like a well trained horse tied to a post. The horse doesn't do anything until it's untied and someone takes the reins.

All this talk of a "new" arms race if the US does this or that seems silly to me. Hasn't the same arms race been going on since the first time one human used a stick or stone to harm another? That stick or stone was not evil. The usage was evil.

The only way I can imagine to preempt the rise to power of evil leaders is to somehow create an environment where deception is not possible. If I have any pessimism in me, it's that we won't be able to accomplish that by force.

rshowalter - 02:29pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3227 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Deception is MUCH harder to accomplish, about big things, than it used to be. That's been one of the key arguments in this thread. It is getting harder and harder to lie. That means, there's more and more hope to get rid of nuclear weapons. So they are outlawed and stay outlawed. And, for coordinated sociotechnical systems big enough to make or use nukes, deception is going to be much harder five of ten years from now than it is today.

People will always decieve in various ways. But on things as tangible as nukes, it is getting easier and easier to check for deception.

I think nukes can be outlawed, so it sticks. It would have to be carefully done -- but it could be done sooner, and for a hell of a lot less, than even a really half assed NMD system.

The current administration, even if led by the devil himself, and some intimate assistants, would still be able to take the lead here.

Moreover, I think a great deal might be done by coordination of nations excluding America -- it might be done with America following, rather than leading.

applez0 - 02:45pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3228 of 3258)

Rshowalter - while it is certainly harder to proceed in a secretive manner at the scale of organization (i.e. business, government, any body of individuals greater than a handful), deceptions remains easy. As people become more and more tied into the global information networks, *misinformation* and libelous mischaracterizations have grown proportionally.

A clever organization can influence these patterns of belief to their benefit.

A very good program hitting on many of these issues was 'Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War' 3-part TV series, produced out of Canada, scathing about the conduct of the Western powers in the Balkans, making conditions FAR WORSE than they needed be.

rshowalter - 02:48pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3229 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I don't doubt that people are vulnerable to deception. But nukes are " a basket worth watching" and deception, about nukes, wouldn't be easy.

Nor should anyone have anything to "win" with them.

People don't scare easy enough for nukes to be effective for blackmail, anyway. People are too tough for that.

rshowalter - 02:48pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3230 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

836: rshowalter 3/5/01 6:53am
839: rshowalter 3/5/01 3:43pm

840: rshowalter 3/5/01 4:06pm
... a question arises. A military or political leader, responsible for real action, will have to ask ---

" OK - suppose we get rid of the nukes. -- What then ? .. .... What do we do, step by step, in detail, to defend ourselves, and keep safe, in a world where there is much to fear?

841: rshowalter 3/5/01 4:08pm
To get to an answer, we have to understand a new, basic thing. We all understand that the development of nuclear weapons changed history. But nuclear weapons did not STOP history.

(more coming)

applez0 - 02:48pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3231 of 3258)

First step towards neutralizing an global arms race is to clear up the fog in international communications (this latest Pentagon-China idiocy anyone?). Making media beholden to truth rather than hearsay would be hugely valuable for international relations and even the democratic process. Responsible media would declare their uncertainties about a story while telling it...rather than hidden apologia long after the political rhetoric has swept up the hearsay as fact (Spanish-American War anyone?).

I therefore happen to favor the UK's VERY STRONG libel laws.

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