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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 - 08:07pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7474 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

Mais la Russie est fragile.

Top U.S. finance and trade officials on Thursday praised Russia's economic reform efforts and said they would work hard to turn promises of cooperation into actions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans said Washington would do everything it could to aid Russia's ascension to the World Trade Organization, which President Vladimir Putin has named as a top priority.

- Jackson-Vanik amendment denies Russia most-favored-nation trading status in the United States

"We are designing a global solution to a global overcapacity of steel. We want everybody to play a very positive role in finding a positive solution," Evans said.

Defence - MoscowTimes.

lunarchick - 08:14pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7475 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

Kim's on his way ... rail travel affords photo opportunities.

lunarchick - 08:36pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7476 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

Chechnya /Special Report / The Conflict in

- Mayor - Zhidkov, 45, a native of Grozny, fills a position vacated

Zhidkov had been picked, in part, because he had kept his reputation clean. "We had to identify a person … who wouldn't be directly or indirectly associated with the circles that compromised themselves in the last decades," Kadyrov told Interfax.

rshowalter - 08:48pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7477 of 7502)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

New York Times on the Web Forums - News Forums - Politics Issue of the Week: Missile Defense and Arms Cuts started on the 23d, and has ~ 400 postings in the last four days. I've read about half way through, and found #204 guitarzen "Issue of the Week: Missile Defense and Arms Cuts" 7/25/01 12:03pm very good.

lunarchick - 08:54pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7478 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

# May be interesting links here: http://www.tribune.atfreeweb.com/intlinks.htm
Canadians - Globalisation G8: overkill ?

lunarchick - 09:00pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7479 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

From the thread: (concludes re grab from dollar churn)

Eisenhower quote: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed - those who are cold and not clothed."

But we've spent $45 billion on star-wars systems and $95 billion on total missile-defense efforts since Reagan embraced the idea, with little beyond failed tests to show for it.

"Let's get real, we all know that if anyone ever attacks America, the bomb is going to be delivered by a suitcase, a car, a truck, or in a boat. It's not going to come from a missile, because you can track where a missile comes from and retaliate. We all know that we're lobbying for these programs because they make us money. We don't care whether they'll ever work, or even be useful. We care that the dollars come our way."

Let's leave aside the endless reasons why national missile defense will never work. Leave aside all the ways that - even if it did - it would only undermine hard-won arms-control treaties, destabilize global politics, move us back toward nuclear confrontation, and squander more than $200 billion of resources that could otherwise provide health-care, hire teachers, rebuild our communities, or protect our environment. Do we have the political honesty, like the Lockheed Martin employee who spoke out, to acknowledge that this entire proposal may be largely about political payback? The true shield it's designed to create would not protect people and communities. But it would protect the massive profits of the companies that build it - whatever the costs to the rest of us.

by Paul Rogat Loeb

lunarchick - 09:10pm Jul 26, 2001 EST (#7480 of 7502)
lunarchick@www.com

Posting the header-blurb from this politics thread:

Issue of the Week: Missile Defense and Arms Cuts President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia agreed this week to enter into simultaneous talks on American plans to deploy a missile defense system and the prospect of large cuts in both nuclear arsenals. If an accord is actually reached, it could take the place of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. One objective of the administration’s engagement with the Russians is to persuade skeptical European leaders as well as the lawmakers in Washington that American-Russian relations are on a firm footing, and that the development of an antimissile shield will not lead to a new cold war. For their part, the Russians wish to engage the Americans to limit the scope of the Bush administration's antimissile program and to pin Mr. Bush down on the bold cuts in strategic arms that he has promised in vague terms but has yet to specify. The key question remains whether Washington and Moscow are willing to actually make the concessions on arms issues to cement an understanding. Share your thoughts on the latest developments.

Shows everyone is looking for the overt, when, stopping STEEL DUMPING - Trade was the magnetic nuts&bolts issue. It often comes back to trade - trade/commerce/industry - jobs employment - Maslow's shelter and food - the basics!

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense