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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?

lunarchick - 10:23am Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7002 of 7010)
lunarchick@www.com

Bwsh made RenewableEnergy fashionable!

lunarchick - 10:36am Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7003 of 7010)
lunarchick@www.com

swinging the truth ? MoonLandingFakedThread .. folks are becoming very skeptical :)

lunarchick - 10:37am Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7004 of 7010)
lunarchick@www.com

Nite!

lunarchick - 10:43am Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7005 of 7010)
lunarchick@www.com

!

rshowalter - 01:02pm Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7006 of 7010)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A major source of credible information, though only one of many, is the output of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

A sampling, from this source, gives, I believe, a sense of what a challenge it is to consider "all the credible data" -- indeed, what an impossible challenge it is.

MD5143 rshowalter 6/14/01 7:36pm .. and .. MD5378-5383 rshowalter 6/18/01 3:14pm
give extensive links to NYT articles cited and providing background to this thread.

It takes a staff, and any automated help possible to facilitate rather than impede human judgement, to deal with the mass of material that matters to right decisions.

Issues of war and peace, and international cooperation between the US and Russia, in the world as it is, are intractably complicated, and some of the interactions will take staffs to comb out and master.

We are only beginning to make contact, at the necessarily detailed and sometimes emotional levels, that are necessary for effectively ending the Cold War. This thread has had a role in that.

MD5384 rshowalter 6/18/01 3:49pm

When two cultures that are very different and have systematic misunderstandings have to make real peace, and learn to interact, that will take staffing, too.

Technically, and humanly, it is now possible for us to learn these things. We must find ways to do it.

Some of the work will have to involve governments, but some ought to involve members of the broader societies of both countries.

We are different enough that we can't "take for granted" each other's minds -- minds that have been formed by "swimming" in very different "seas" of information.

"Right wing intuition" isn't good enough, and false assumptions, elaborately defended, are dangerous.

rshowalter - 01:03pm Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7007 of 7010)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The administration's missile defense program, taken as a whole, could scarely be worse adapted to meet those needs. They are making plainly false assumptions, about the rest of the world, about the threats, about the technical possibilities -- again and again. The administration is pushing to "solve" threats that are not credible, with technology that cannot work, at the same time putting dangerous pressures on Russia, at a time when effectively ending the policies of the Cold War should be a major priority, and stresses in Russia are a threat to us.

- - Russia’s Nuclear and Missile Complex: The Human Factor in Proliferation Valentin Tikhonov, for the Non-Proliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/NPPDemoStudy.asp

If the administration's goals are not corrupt, they are crazy. rshowalter 7/13/01 10:02am

Things don't add up: The Rumsfeld Defense by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/opinion/13FRIE.html

" Fuzzy math, meet fuzzy strategy. The Bush budget isn't the only thing that's fuzzy in Washington these days. The Bush strategic vision doesn't add up either."

And things of great value are being jettisoned. The administration is acting, on the basis of ideas most Americans do not share, to destroy the value of the word of the United States in international affairs.

Nuclear Testing and National Honor by RICHARD BUTLER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/opinion/13BUTL.html

" The intention of the White House to kill the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, if fulfilled, would have serious consequences for nuclear arms control."

rshowalter - 01:14pm Jul 13, 2001 EST (#7008 of 7010)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Important pieces today:

Pentagon Sets Ambitious Tests of Missile Plan by JAMES DAO http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/international/13MISS.html

Military Scuttles Strategy Requiring '2-War' Capability by THOM SHANKER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/13/international/13MILI.html

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