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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 - 08:22am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7449 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Professor Alan Roberts (International Relations Oxfd) talking with nbr, noted the reluctance of America to adopt treaties along with it's allies. He spoke of America as regarding the rest of the world as hateful, sinful, a bunch of layabouts - a view point beautifully illustrated here : levin81 7/23/01 1:06am

lunarchick - 08:36am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7450 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Back to that $1500 per head per year - every year - year-in year-out - expenditure on Defence.

Mystro a drum roll for these big-ticket items in procurement for the military industrial complex:

F/A-18E/F
Fighter
F-22 Fighter
Joint Strike Fighter
C-17 Transport Aircraft
V-22
Osprey Aircraft
RAH-66 Comanche Helicopter
Crusader Artillery System
NSSN New Attack Submarine ("Virginia" Class)
Ballistic and National Missile Defense (BMD)

rshowalter - 08:52am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7451 of 7469)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Not a single one of them is worthwhile from the viewpoint of a reasonable United States citizen, unconnected with the military or military contractors. The aircraft are not needed to respond to any credible threat -- and with advances in radar that are now either in place or possible, none are even viable. The Osprey is grossly defective. We don't need another submarine for either defensive or offensive purposes -- though the Navy and the contractors may want it.

We have good artillery now -- and as I remember, the Crusader may be being phased out -- a good decision.

NONE of the above are projects that American citizens are enthusiastic about -- the military doesn't even bother to "sell" them very hard.

Missile Defense is different. It makes sense to people -- it promises something people would like to have. But it doesn't work technically, and can't -- and it is associated with prohibitive diplomatic and financial costs.

No winners in the list above -- except for the contractors.

rshowalter - 08:54am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7452 of 7469)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 7/26/01 8:22am There is a faction of "conservative" opinion in the United States, backed by many in the federal government, that holds the rest of the world, including American allies, in contempt.

MD7315 rshowalter 7/23/01 7:24am

" 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.

But the administration is more diverse than that, and gisterme expressed a desire for accomodation on this thread that was interesting, and in some ways hopeful. MD5617 gisterme 6/20/01 10:14pm .

" People don't just automatically know how to get along with each other, especially those from different cultures...they have to learn. It seems the same is true with nations.

" If there is to be "accomodation" it must be bilateral. That's called cooperation. No sense of unilateral boot-licking or condesension comes to mind with the term "cooperation". Wouldn't you agree, Robert? "

I would.

Something else may come harder. What about questions of fact?

Can missile defense work? As a technical matter?

Reasonable conduct depends on right answers about this, among other things, and accomodations that seem "beautiful" on the basis of wrong assumptions may be ugly, instead.

The United States needs to show respect for the intelligence of the the human beings who are its citizens, and for other people in the world, and come to accomodations on the basis of facts, not patterns that are, in Friedman's phrase, "theology".

lunarchick - 09:11am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7453 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Defence $'s >> community alternatives <<

lunarchick - 09:20am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7454 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Japan - Sony - fall in profits .... Japanese economy is down .. a good time for Whale Watchers to put boycott pressures on them.

JapanWhaling 1 2 Tourists-Perth

lunarchick - 09:28am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7455 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Russia Kyoto

The move towards 'clean' air within nations will be good for the world. Rogue countries may be reluctant to join such agreements. To their techological detriment. The answer may be for all countries to be measured against an agreed national index. Then in the same way that www.transparency.com looks at honesty v graft and corruption, an index re ecology could be established.

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