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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?

possumdag - 08:37am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5347 of 5358)
Possumdag@excite.com

War -- seems an old framework for resolving problems ..

Treats people as 'the enemy', plunders, is a type of vandalism, has (their) life-long victims, is often run by youths (little more than children), leads into a 'talk - negotiate' situation eventually .. after devastation. Encourages the 'wrong' role model types to come to the fore, carrying out devious acts, and throws up tyrants.

rshowalter - 08:38am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5348 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Communication "through channels" is important, but communication outside channels can be, too.

When "the powers that be" want to control information -- and they almost always do, an independent place to stand can be important.

I hope Putin does not agree to "only talk to the Americans through channels." -- particularly at the level of checking facts and relationships.

These days, almost always, everything that is needed to rule out inconsistent views, and focus more workable understandings, is available in the open literature, and on the internet. But it needs to be organized.

That only happens when effort is expended. If the objective is getting truth, the investigations can be open.

rshowalter - 08:48am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5349 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some americans are clear about the necessity of distrust (but not clear enough about the fact that, for all of us, essentially all the time, trust and distrust exist along a negotiated and contextually bound contiunuum). I think it would be better if they were clearer about that, and everybody else were, too.

Bush's Warmth Toward Russian Leader Stirs Skeptics by JANE PERLEZ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/18DIPL.html

WHEN LIES KILL In China, the Right to Truth Meets Life and Death By ERIK ECKHOLM http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/weekinreview/17ECKH.html

Good relations may be "trusting" in a sense, but they are "distrustful" in other senses. And I think it would be a fine thing if all the nations in NATO, and Russia, and China, became clearer about what they should distrust the US about, and what they should distrust themselves, and each other, about.

rshowalter - 08:53am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5350 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I made a proposal for nuclear disarmament, incomplete, but I still think pretty good as far as it goes, based not a kind of trust that we can't have, but on kinds of distrust that we do in fact have, and should have.

MD266 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am .... MD267 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:33am
MD268 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:35am .... MD269 rshowalt 9/25/00 7:36am

Maybe there's much to be said against it. And it surely is incomplete -- other military balances have to make sense, before nuclear disarmament can. Still, it seems pretty good to me, as far as it goes, and it has ceremonial aspects that make sense, it seems to me.

rshowalter - 09:17am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5351 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

People need to exercise judgement (and that includes a willingness to doubt) in senses that I feel were eloquently explained in a sermon that I've posted here a number of times. http://www.wisc.rshowalt/sermon.html . The point is made in the whole 20 minute sermon, and the sermon is largely secular after the first 9 minutes. The key point about judgement -- and that means judgement enough to check things, and make sure that we're right about what matters, is made especially in the last minute of the sermon, after minute 19. The seconds leading up to the last word of the sermon, I believe, are eloquent persuasion.

rshowalter - 09:19am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5352 of 5358)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We ought to check things, when they matter enough. We can do so, in all the most important ways that concern missile defense, and militarily and politically related issues.

Nobody ought to apologize about checking -- and people ought to be blamed when they stand in the way of checking.

These are matters of life and death.

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