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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 - 10:26am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7462 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

SEVODNIA - NTV, Moscow: July 26, 2001 www.ntv.ru/index.html

broadcast in Russian Mon to Sat 9.30-10.15 am

MOSCOW STORM AFTERMATH: The death of a 25-year-old man in a Moscow hospital has increased the toll of a violent storm in the capital to five. Scores were injured in the storm, and 21 people remain in hospital. Thousands of trees were uprooted, power lines were downed and hundreds of roofs were damaged during the tempest. Moscow authorities are still assessing the damage.

CONDOLEEZA RICE IN MOSCOW: The United State’s National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, has arrived in Russia for policy talks with her counterpart. The US anti-missile defence system are likely to top the agenda. Russia’s Vladimir Rushailo, invited her to Moscow for a round of talks with top Russian diplomats. 46 years old Ms Rice speaks some Russian, having studied in the USSR many years ago.

rshowalter - 10:26am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7463 of 7469)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

To do that, there would have to be significant press involvement - - significant persuasion - - the leaders, political and military, couldn't accomplish nuclear disarmament, with really reliable enforcement, otherwise.

But the requirements for that persuasion are coming into place. If Russia and the US were agreed (and that would mean, Russia, the EU, the US, and very many of the Islamic countries would be agreed) much could be accomplished.

lunarchick - 10:34am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7464 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Russia-Electricy deal pleases EU investors.

lunarchick - 10:42am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7465 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Editorial* FT

lunarchick - 10:47am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7466 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Putin: US won't wait for missile pact

Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that the US will not wait for his agreement to deploy the Son of Star Wars missile defence system. However, US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice says a strong opportunity exists for quick progress in strategic arms discussions with Russia. Following a meeting with Putin in Moscow, Rice says the US will go ahead with tests for the proposed missile system, which Russia opposes and says violates the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
London: The Times

lunarchick - 10:50am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7467 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Begs the question - what are/were they talking about?
(Bwsh-Putin meet September along the old silk route - Shanghai)

lunarchick - 10:57am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7468 of 7469)
lunarchick@www.com

Nite! Says Titania ?

rshowalter - 11:32am Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7469 of 7469)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The violations of the treaty, in legal form, that the Bush administration is undertaking may be among the least physically threatening violations ever recorded in military history.

If the emotions involved can get all sides decentered, and working on fundamentals, the "violation" should be a small price to pay. No matter how one may feel about the legalities, the missile defense program hopelessly inadequate, and hence unthreatening, as a meaningful missile defense.

MD7315 rshowalter 7/23/01 7:24am

MD7317-7320 lunarchick 7/23/01 8:38am

MD7023-25 rshowalter 7/14/01 5:39pm . .

MD6642 rshowalter 7/5/01 12:46pm ... MD6643 rshowalter 7/5/01 12:46pm

With the ingenuity the Bush administration is now devoting to making its case for missile defense (and you have to credit them with ingenuity and initiative on this) they could probably figure out how to achieve real peace, solve the global warming problem, and assure the whole world an adequate and safe energy supply, forever. They might get water desalinization to something close to thermodynamic effiency as well - so that the energy in a unit volume of oil could be traded, on the needed scale at the needed rates -- for 15,000+ unit volumes of clean water.

The engineers over their heads on missile defense could do possible technical jobs pretty well.

The Bush administration has embraced a longstanding mess. They didn't make it.

What they seem to be doing now is making a mess much worse, rather than fixing it.

They'd get a lot more credit for fixing it than they're getting, and going to get, for what they're now doing.

We may be seeing a tragicomedy play though - - where the United States shows the world, beyond any possibility of mistaking the lesson, that it is capable of sustained, insane, and ineffectual conduct. Combined with contempt for the opinion of others, and bad faith.

Or, possibly, some things are being sorted out.

Anyway, for now, it seems to me that the contrast between the outrage, at the contractual level, and the nonexistent threat of the MD tests, at the physical level, ought to be remembered.

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