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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?

rshowalter - 05:07pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8511 of 8523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

An insight, enough motivation for me, and a challenge:

MD380 rshowalt 10/5/00 5:54pm

rshowalter - 05:14pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8512 of 8523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'd like to post links to a Guardian thread where I've said many of the most important things I'd like people to know. Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0

including the key story, #13.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/13 ...to #23.. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?7@@.ee7a163/24

note #26 ... http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/25

Here are some postings, connected to the Casablanca story that interest me especially today. And more.

MD6058 rshowalter 6/26/01 7:23am

rshowalter - 05:22pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8513 of 8523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Maybe I'm a literary figure -- call me Ishmael.

The story I like best about me . . . is that I'm just a guy who got interested in logic, and military issues. A guy who got concerned about nuclear danger, and related military balances, and tried to do something about it. Based on what he knew - with no access to special information of any kind, he made an effort to keep the world from blowing up, using the best literary devices he could fashion, consistent with what he knew or could guess.

MD6057 rshowalter 6/26/01 7:22am

MD6370_71 rshowalter 7/1/01 7:19am

The Cold War should be over.

We need to change some patterns.

lunarchick - 05:23pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8514 of 8523)
lunarchick@www.com

Americans do get noticed when they wrong-side a fine white line :)

A UK email poster tells me the UK is importing Russians; to teach English, and staff hospitals - but that's a given. Globalisation may have attracted UK original inhabitants elsewhere.

rshowalter - 05:30pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8515 of 8523)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In the Guardian Talk threads and in this Missile Defense thread, Dawn Riley and I have worked to focus patterns of human reasoning and persuasion, and problems with human reasoning and persuasion.

We believe that controversies that could not be resolved before may be resolvable now. (links). MD3046 rshowalter 5/2/01 5:32pm

lunarchick - 05:31pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8516 of 8523)
lunarchick@www.com

When organisations fail to function appropriately in relation to the contemporay environment they can either be re-jigged, or, re-vived - new frameworks and structures imposed being appropriate to the NOW not the PAST.

wrcooper - 06:08pm Sep 5, 2001 EST (#8517 of 8523)

rshowalter 9/5/01 5:22pm

Why do you suggest that the Cold War isn't over? Bush's NMD plan has nothing to do with the Cold War, which ended years ago. The NMD plan ostensibly seeks to protect the US against small-scale missile attacks from rogue nations or terrorist organizations with a limited number of ICBMs. It doesn't even pretend to offer a defense against a full-scale missile attack from, say, mainland China or eastern Europe. So your lingering Cold War scenario doesn't fit the facts.

In my opinion, the technical arguments against the Bush administration's plan, while convincing to many, aren't the strongest arguments against it. The DOD can always assert (as it in fact does) that technological advancements will resolve whatever difficulties remain. In the realm of technology, never never means never. No, the strongest argument is that a limited BMD is worthless, because it can't protect us from the most likely sort of attack, namely a small-scale nuclear or chemical strike involving a single weapon smuggled onto US soil by an individual or small band of perpetrators. The idea is ludicrous that a small terrorist state or organization would go to the difficulty and expense of launching a missile that could be easily identified as originating from its home terrority.

Secondly, the geopolitical argument against Bush's plan is also more convincing than the technical one. The BMD program would be destabilizing, promoting further nuclear proliferation, as nuclear nations sought to develop means to counter the missile defense system in order to restore the preexisting status quo. To promote disarmament requires that the incentives to acquire and maintain nuclear weapons be lessened, not increased.

In any case, the nethermost bottom line is simply politics and money. The BMD is a broadband open-ended consumer of defense dollars, which pleases the aerospace and weapons contractors who will be charged with developing and implementing it. Bush is paying back his political backers. This program makes no sense from any other point of view. It's militarily worthless.

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