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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 - 02:18pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5370 of 5383)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD52545255 rshowalter 6/16/01 8:33am ... quotes Lewis and then ends

" If Bush is being fairly treated by Lewis here, and that seems to me to be one fair interpretation of all the circumstances, though not the only one, then NATO as an alliance is going to be reduced to a husk -- because the ideas and ideals on which NATO has been based will have been shown to be a mockery.

" It is possible that Lewis, though he makes a reasonable interpretation, will turn out to be wrong, and there will be some very good consequences from the marked disequilibration of the status quo the Bush administration has produced.

" Time will tell.

" There is NO reason to trust, on these issues, except in the sense of "trusting what can be checked."

I'll stand by every word of that.

rshowalter - 02:22pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5371 of 5383)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme's right.

I had an email yesterday, from computer programmers who handled english poorly, and who seemed pretty likely to be mainland Chinese.

Haven't responded -- I don't think they'll fill the bill. But I'll pass on the idea, in the hope that they may know someone.

For myself, I'd be reluctant to talk to Chinese government types, unless I found a way to feed whatever communication there was to my own country -- and I don't think they'd be interested.

gisterme - 02:50pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5372 of 5383)

lunarchick wrote: "...Getting to know you -..."

There's more...

Getting to know you,

Getting to know all about you,

Getting to like you,

Getting to hope you like me,

Haven't you noticed,

Suddinly I'm bright and breezy? ...

From "The King and I" by Rogers and Hammerstein.

You picked a good analogy there lunarchick. Seems to describe just exatcly what's happening between presidents Putin and Bush and many European leaders. Why should either prisident worry about those few European cry-babys who have NO chips on the nuclear table when it comes to BMD?

I noticed that those European "squeeky wheels" seemed to get a disproportionate amount of media grease considereing that they don't carry ANY load or even touch the ground. :-)

rshowalter - 02:54pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5373 of 5383)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Progress has been made, no question.

No question that there's plenty to do, either.

But it seems to me that the chances of real peace are greater than they've been at any time since so many chances were missed at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, when hopes were so high.

Let's be careful, this time.

rshowalter - 02:59pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5374 of 5383)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The King and I ended with a guy dying of a broken heart.

Let's do it without the dying, and the broken hearts, this time.

gisterme - 03:09pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5375 of 5383)

Rshowalter wrote: "...For myself, I'd be reluctant to talk to Chinese government types..."

Me too if they identified themselves as such, Robert.

One of the things that appeals about a thread like this is that it is anonymous. Folks can discuss, float ideas, even make proposals without any type of commitment by powers that be. We're just individuals discussing ideas. The anonymity makes all kinds of discussion possible without any sort of official political baggage.

One problem that Chinese individuals might have is that they could be held accoutable by their government for what they say since they can't really count on anonymity. They must think in terms of "constraints" to protect their own personal well-being. That's really too bad. It seems that a number of Chinese intellectuals and free-thinkers have been persecuted there lately; particularly those that might have good reason to have excellent English language skills.

gisterme - 03:13pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5376 of 5383)

rshowlater wrote: "...I'll stand by every word of that..."

That's you're interpretation and you're first amendment right, Robert. Likewise I'll stand by what I said about the article.

rshowalter - 03:14pm Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5377 of 5383)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Staffing is necessary, communication between staffs is necessary, and patterns for storing, interpreting and accessing complex information are necessary because the world is more complex than we can imagine, and too big to fit into our heads.

A single week's output of The New York Times , which is only a subset of of Bush's total coverage, gives an illustration of the complexity and multidimensionality of the "Bush space" that must be accomodated.

You need staffs, and ways to supplement human intellectual resources, to handle a world much more complicated than even The New York Times can fully cover.

Here's a week's coverage of Bush-related matters, with many well written articles, to illustrate that. I haven't read them all - but I've read many -- and I wish I could write so well as these reporters do.

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