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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 - 03:13pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4157 of 4159)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are some important, hopeful issues here -- and I'm wanting to emphasize them again.

gisterme 5/21/01 6:27pm asked if I think murder is OK -- and alluded again to my comment that the US military, in other eyes, too often looks too much like Major Strasser, the Nazi villian in Casablanca . --- I think death is unfortunate, and prefer aimed fire to random murder. I don't think the distinction between "murder" and "death by reason of military action" is a particularly interesting distinction, for a lot of purposes. I bet gisterme knew those things.

4121: rshowalter 5/21/01 8:54pm says these things among others.

We need to get things clear - and we need to fashion deals that make sense and are correct from the viewpoint of all concerned. That includes the interests of Russia as well as the United States. And the interests of many other countries, too.

We need solutions that fit cases, and are proportionate - from a lot of points of view. We need solutions in the real, complex circumstances, where fear levels and distrust levels are justifiably high - though there are substantial areas of limited but real trust and good will, too.

"I'm going to take time .............. In hope of offering steps toward solutions that work.

Here is 4123: rshowalter 5/21/01 9:01pm , which I think is essential:

. . . Russia can't be asked to agree to nuclear safety for the world, at the cost of sacrificing HER interests, from HER point of view. Neither can other nations.

The deal has to work for everybody. On their terms. With circumstances, including history and human feelings, as they are, and not as we might wish them to be.

This doesn't look easy to me, but it does look possible. For a stable solution to be possible, feelings between people can be very different, but key facts have to be the same for all concerned.

gisterme , I hope you don't think I'm being too windy -- I'm compiling a list of nuts and bolts suggestions - you've heard them before, but I think they're worth considering. Not highflown, but maybe doable.

rshowalter - 03:29pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4158 of 4159)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think almarst's
4148: almarst-2001 5/22/01 1:48pm .... 4149: almarst-2001 5/22/01 2:06pm
4150: almarst-2001 5/22/01 2:14pm
are superb, and the more widely they were understood, in America, and among nations and people all over the world, the safer, more comfortable, and richer we'd all be.

It seems to me that the best thing I can do, just now, is put up a thread on the Guardian, a condensation of another Guardian thread I let expire -- dealing with the Golden Rule, and some intellectual issues fitting it to complex cases and real people, not as we might like to think of ourselves, but as the animals we are. I think I'll have it done in less than 40 minutes.

rshowalter - 05:20pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4159 of 4159)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Detail, and the Golden Rule Guardian Talk Issues http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee83429/0 is about 10 printed pages. It deals with issues that I believe matter for complex cooperation -- the Golden Rule, its interpretation in terms of notions of disciplined beauty, and the notion that man's inhumanity to man can sometimes be instinctual. Man's inhumanity to man, therefore, has to be guarded against by culture and learned wisdom.

The basic message is closely related to things that people, all over the world, already know well, and often use gracefully.

I'm not a church-goer, myself, and Dawn isn't either. I feel that the ideas here make sense in secular terms, and ought to be common ground among religions that work well for people.

Almarst , Dawn, and I have discussed these ideas on this thread extensively. Here the notions are set out as concisely as I've known how to make them on short notice. I hope they are clear.

I believe that these ideas, applied in detail to real cases, and combined with the new internet tools for enhanced human memory and complexity tolerance, may make it possible to cut deals that work well for people that would have been more difficult before.

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