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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 - 04:28pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5466 of 5475)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme 6/19/01 4:15pm I don't know if President Putin and his advisors think like almarst , but if they do, their concerns about missile defense are a part -- only a part -- of much larger concerns about the aggressiveness and lawlessness of the United States.

almarst said, several times, that if it hadn't been for the way Yugoslavia was handled, he'd be much more open-minded about missile defense.

I don't personally see how MD is any objective threat to Russia -- insofar as anything objectively has been described.

It is the pattern of US conduct of the US that is almarst's central concern -- adress that, and resistance to a communal missile defense may be quite small.

( Adress that, and the threat that MD is intended to deal with might go away, too.)

If the US doesn't adress the central concern Russia has - technical niceties, or technical arguments aren't going to help much.

rshowalter - 04:31pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5467 of 5475)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm not personally convinced that the threat that MD is intended to adress even exists, in the way that is being claimed -- and a lot of military people in the EU seem to feel the same.

To the extent that the threat exists, I think there are much better ways of dealing with it than MD.

But the concern people have with MD is in large part a concern about a larger pattern of conduct.

The US doesn't seem to care much if it kills non-americans -- in Kissingerian fashion -- it deals with the world as if it was playing a board game, a game with symbols or pieces -- not risking and wasting and blighting the lives of innocent people.

gisterme - 04:37pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5468 of 5475)

It makes life more convenient.

It sure does, Robert.

rshowalter - 04:41pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5469 of 5475)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The larger context that mostly concerns almarst , as I read him, involves big issues like the militarization of space -- something Russia stands opposed to, and that I oppose personally, too. A very good comment about the problems, and risks, is MD4525 htfiii 6/5/01 9:25pm ... , which seems a little more tangible, because of the (reasonable and standard, but dead serious) retaliatory alternatives discussed by Putin today.

rshowalter - 04:46pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5470 of 5475)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Fix these big, passionately felt misunderstandings, and valid concerns, and cooperation in reducing nuclear threats from smaller nations and groups would be a foregone conclusion between Russia and the US, in my opinion.

A comment by Thomas Freidman (who isn't almarst's favorite writer of all time) about Kissinger expressed some of the concerns well. Something about Machiavelli looking like an angel of mercy beside Kissinger, as I recall.

That was a serious statement by Friedman, and expresses, I believe, feelings by almarst that need to be adressed, not only by talk, but by modifications in the behavior of the United States.

The Cold War should be over -- and partly, that means that the US should stop doing the things that continue it.

rshowalter - 05:07pm Jun 19, 2001 EST (#5471 of 5475)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Thomas L Friedman's review of Kissenger's Does America Need a Foreign Policy http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kissinger-01policy.html ...is titled suggesting an over-simplified, incomplete model - beautiful in some ways, ugly in other ways:

Friedman titles the review

How to Run the World in Seven Chapters http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/17/reviews/010617.17friedmt.html

The piece includes this:

" What was said of ''The Prince,'' as Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. of Harvard University explains in his translation, will no doubt be said by critics of Kissinger. Mansfield wrote: ''Soon after being published in 1532,'' Machiavelli's book ''was denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and as a recommendation of tyranny, giving rise to the hateful term 'Machiavellian.' '' Kissinger's book is not a recommendation for tyranny in any way, but it is very ''Kissingerian'' -- focused more around power balances, stability and national interests than American values. I have no doubt that Kissinger is as cynical, mean and nasty a bureaucratic infighter and player of the game of nations as his most venomous critics have charged. At times, he can make Machiavelli sound like one of the Sisters of Mercy. But having said that, one can still value the clarity of his thinking, which is fully on display here.

One can value that clarity, from one perspective, and find it ugly indeed if you are almarst , of looking at things from the perspective of many other countries.

MD5300 lunarchick 6/17/01 12:57am has great links to Machiavelli

It seems to me that, in nuclear policy, the Vietnam War, and much else, the United States, behaving in "Kissingerian" fashion -- really was as ugly and blood-curdling as Friedman suggests.

We should stop behaving that way.

If we did, getting accomodations on missile defense would be a matter of course -- whatever those accomodations were. They'd happen by simple negotiation.

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