New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 12:09pm May 8, 2001 EST (#3510 of 3514)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It is worth noting that nuclear weapons aren't necessary to deter the US to a significant extent -- look how concerned the US was about 24 service people.

Proportionate, and quite moderate, counterforces, and counterthreats might well get things that are now wildly disproportionate into balance.

Now, the US seems to feel that its military actions -- no matter how many non-Americans are inconvenienced, or injured, or killed, are costless. That's how it looked to almarst , for example.

The world ought to see that this feeling changes. I don't see how a decent American can reasonably object to that.

tallulahb1 - 12:13pm May 8, 2001 EST (#3511 of 3514)

Space General or Space Cadet? It just boggles the mind...now having failed to identify any actual "rogue nations" (except for the USA in the eyes of the rest of the world)from whom we need defense, are now claiming we need to defend our satellites from a Pearl Harbor-like attack! People are hungry, need medicine & healthcare, need housing and education, developing renewable fuels is critical, the environment's becoming toxic but instead of addressing any of those very real and pressing problems, let's manufacture a threat so we can spend billions to prop up the almost obsolete defense industry which helped pay for our coup d'etat. More Bush- league priorities out of some cold war time warp...repackaged into "space defense".

rshowalter - 12:28pm May 8, 2001 EST (#3512 of 3514)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 5/3/01 5:12pm includes a poem that seems to fit American military-industrial policy, and America, much too well --- and increasingly well.

. Tyrannososaurus was a beast
that had no friends, to say the least.
It ruled the ancient out-of-doors,
and slaughtered other dinosaurs

from TYRANNOSAURUS WAS A BEAST: Dinosaur Poems by Jack Prelustsky illustrated by Arnold Lobel

We have to worry that, whatever our intentions, and whatever our rhetoric, people view initiatives like missile defense from that sort of perspective.

And given our history, people have reason to question our intentions, and doubt our rhetoric.

And, as tallulahb1 5/8/01 12:13pm points out, to question the sanity of our priorities.

rbourdettejr - 12:29pm May 8, 2001 EST (#3513 of 3514)

The Rumsfeld proposals are only what we might have expected and what so many of us feared--and fear. Instead of leading the way in using space for peaceful and productive ends, the United States, under Rusmfeld-Bush, is leading the way to make space a battle zone. Will we never learn?

rshowalter - 12:38pm May 8, 2001 EST (#3514 of 3514)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 5/7/01 4:11pm starts: " let me recopy 2999: rshowalter 5/2/01 1:41pm which responds to your 2997. I believe, now, that a good deal of it should be "common ground."

gisterme 5/2/01 1:09pm "Okay, Robert, I'll bite. What are the lies, the missteps and who is the very small extraconstitutional group?"

Well, I set out the lies, misteps, and the small group, and at the level of fact, gisterme did not disagree.

But he said "it was a war -- and it was all all right -."

In gisterme's view, so far as I can tell, war makes everything all right. Mass murder becomes routine. And unfortunate activites in a war are easily forgotten - justice is simply set aside. How easily US forces recruited and used Nazi war criminals after WWII. How comfortably we let the Japanese off for their atrocities, after a few small trials for public relations. Were we any worse ourselves, American may have asked -- and may have reasonably asked.

I wonder how many other people would agree with gisterme's position. I have no doubt that many Americans would. Even so, I wonder if he knows how ugly many of his positions look from the perspective of many other people from his own and other nations?

And how unsatisfactory his positions are as a practical matter. What do those positions lead to?

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense