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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 - 11:57am Jun 25, 2001 EST (#5990 of 5997)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We're making progress. This isn't an entertaining thread - it is an effort, with a good deal of cooperation and encouragement from almarst and gisterme , to set out patterns where staffs can communicate, and get to closure, on problems that would be intractable otherwise.

There are some core issues, that happen again and again, in these sorts of problems. They involve issues of "focus" -- the notion of "disciplined beauty" is an attempt to deal with that. And they involve issues of workable reciprocity and cooperation, in complex circumstances -- accomodating the golden rule to high levels of detail is an attempt to deal with that.

I think good progress is being made. But it isn't easy reading for individuals. The problems involved, at unavoidable levels, require a degree of memory, and tolerance for complexity, that require staffs.

With the internet, and crosslinking, and hard work, there are technical arrangements, partly coming into focus here, that accomodate communication, including the expression of disagreements between staffs.

rshowalter - 12:03pm Jun 25, 2001 EST (#5991 of 5997)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Getting past lies is crucial when things matter. And these things matter.

A sense of proportion helps, too. The disparity between the unadressed needs of AIDS, for example, and US military expenditures, seems glaring.

The way people get around lies, almost every time that is actually done, is by applying consistency relationships, again and again, until the lie becomes less and less plausible -- and then fades away, discredited.

New lies have to be dealt with the same way. Or new, sloppy proposals, that contain mistakes.

For example, while this thread had gone on, much of the missile defense argument, on the technical side, has been reframed as old approaches have been discreditied.

Somehow, we're to feel that the new approaches are better. Somehow, we're not supposed to check them.

We should check them.

maran5901 - 12:18pm Jun 25, 2001 EST (#5992 of 5997)

Let's talk to the point: Mutual Assured Destruction works to deter a missile attack from potential enemies such as Russia, China, etc. To deter a small missile attack from a rogue country such as North Korea or to neutralize it when it occurs it is proposed that we spend many billions and many years to develop a National Missile Defense, that might work or might not work if it comes time to use it in reality. Why would a rogue nation spend billions to send us a few nuclear missiles when they could use suitcase nuclear weapons cheaply developed, and easily smuggle them into the U.S. and detonate them at their convenience? How do we know that such suitcase nukes are not already sitting in warehouses all over the U.S.? We don't and we can't know. When we can't prevent illegal immigrant people coming to the U.S., how could we posssibly prevent illegal immigrant nuclear bombs? We can't!!!. So the whole project is nonsense. maran5901@aol.com, retired aerospace engineer.

smartalix - 12:35pm Jun 25, 2001 EST (#5993 of 5997)
Anyone who denies you information considers themselves your master

We've used this argument many times, Maran. Sadly, the rocketeers can't seem to get their heads around logic.

rshowalter - 01:05pm Jun 25, 2001 EST (#5994 of 5997)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The problem is, that they've built up patterns that assume that they can't be checked -- that they can simply ignore consistency relations. The "culture of lying" described by Weaver, assumes that people can't check, and that, from gullibility of fatigue, come to believe what they hear enough. Here's a quote I really like, from my favorite detective story writer -- Dashiell Hammet in The Thin Man 1933, speaking of a sexy, interesting, treacherous character named "Mimi". He's asked by a police detective what to make of what she says:

" The chief thing," I advised him, "is not to let her wear you out. When you catch her in a lie, she admits it and gives you another lie to take its place, and when you catch he in that one, admits it, and gives you still another, and so on. Most people . . . get discouraged after you've caught them in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on the truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying, and you've got to be careful or you'll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you're tired of disbelieving her. "

Advocates of missile defense have gaping holes in their arguments -- and many european military and political officers weren't even polite about it in Bush's last trip. But the money to be made by getting the lie accepted is great enough that -- they keep trying -- and unless they're checked .... that can be a winning strategy. Too often, it is.

The internet makes checking considerably more possible, and makes memory enough to keep count of lies more feasible. But it takes work.

Because the truth matters here, the work is worth it.

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