New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 01:43am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7357 of 7381)
lunarchick@www.com

This is the book re lunarchick 7/23/01 9:56pm

lunarchick - 02:12am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7358 of 7381)
lunarchick@www.com

K Graham the Publisher's Publisher.

rshowalter - 08:44am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7359 of 7381)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD7315 rshowalter 7/23/01 7:24am reads in part:

" To the extent that the US takes positions, practical and moral, such as the one expressed in a place where US government involvement is to be presumed, in FLYING INTO TURBULENCE by Peter Martin http://www.intellnet.org/news/articles/peter.martin.flying.into.turbulence.html the United States will be showing the world that it does not deserve a leadership role where either moral or practical judgement is concerned. If Martin's sort of view is the kind that the United States shows in words and action, the rest of the world, with plenty of checks and balances available to it, will act on that knowledge.

Such actions are now well along.

Outside the United States, an old consensus, that the United States was not only powerful, but wise, is crumbling very fast - - nations that used to defer to us, with a little discussion, are becoming, if not immune to Bush administration arguments, at least inclined to discount them, rather than inclined to believe them. The ratification of the Kyoto accords is an example. But there are other examples of the US on the defensive, in ways that few would have predicted before.

Germ Warfare Talks Open in London; U.S. Is the Pariah By MICHAEL R. GORDON http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/international/24WEAP.html

Powell Defends U.S. Environmental Policy in Japan By REUTERS http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/24WIRE-TOYK.html

The Bush administration is making arguments that are neither coherent, nor persuasive, nor morally acceptable to many - and that's being reflected on the OpEd pages of The New York Times again today.

MAD Isn't Crazy by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/opinion/24FRIE.html

Isolated on Global Warming http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/opinion/24TUE1.html

rshowalter - 08:48am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7360 of 7381)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

At the same time, the political forces in favor of expenditure on missile defense are very great -- and for a reason. Money, jobs, and the inertial of human lives built around military function.

The main issue effecting political discourse isn't whether missile defense works reasonably as a defensive strategy -- few coherent arguments that it does, and that it makes sense in proportion, are even made. But the military-industrial complex, which accounts for $1500/year for every man woman and child in the US, year after year -- has committed to it, and, if missile defense were abandoned on its merits, as it should be, would have little justification for its size. The military-industrial complex, and the ideas that justify it, have a huge constituency in the United States -- and that is driving

ANTIMISSILE POLITICS Democrats Try to Work Up a Shield Plan of Their Own By JAMES DAO http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/international/24MISS.html

The United States has gotten itself into an awkward situation, practically, and morally.

Facing the realities involved, inside the United States, is difficult.

But looking at these realities is less difficult for other nations. Very, very few of them have any net reason to support the military-industrial complex of the United States, at its present size, and with its current ideals.

That is coming to be widely understood, and widely accepted.

If Americans come to understand it, the whole world, including the United States, will be a safer, richer, more hopeful place.

The money and the skilled manpower in the US military industrial complex are now being largely wasted -- and need to be largely redeployed to things that can work, and are useful.

lunarchick - 09:14am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7361 of 7381)
lunarchick@www.com

Interesting links ... by the time the USA wakes up they'll be technological followers - not leaders.

lunarchick - 09:27am Jul 24, 2001 EST (#7362 of 7381)
lunarchick@www.com

Another opening, another show

(19 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense