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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 - 05:21pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9467 of 9487)
lunarchick@www.com

... a cold war .... with promotion of distortions ... leading to irrationality of thinking ..

ledzeppelin - 05:21pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9468 of 9487)

lunarchick - (#9458)

Its a great pity then; that your 'so called' commentator had not said so on this portal, that would then have saved me the bother?

rshowalter - 05:22pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9469 of 9487)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

C.P.Snow said that

"In any crisis of action, you have to be positive of what you want to do, and able to explain it."

I think we should get some core questions answered, to real closure, I think we can, and I think the problem is big enough that it has to be staffed - - with the sort of staff that can easily be supported, funded from private sources, if heads of nation states want it done - - but may not be possible otherwise.

We're looking for win-win solutions, where current results are gruesome and expensive. They are there to be found.

almarst , your anger and emotion can be helpful, but they help only so much. Some things have to be clear.

Minds have to be changed on patterns which are ugly and counterproductive, but long entrenched, and supported by powerful interests.

We've made a good deal of headway already.

Let me post some stuff on consistency relationships. They matter, in a lot of ways, at a lot of levels. And to get some things sorted out, it makes sense to assess how big the problems are - - and in some ways that can be done by looking at, and counting, interconnections.

The key needed result is an informed empathy on the part of some Americans, and some intransagent, angry Muslims, and others (even some Russians, in spots.) The result may indeed be simple.

The interconnections standing in the way of the result, interconnections that need to be checked and modified, are many, and not all simple.

rshowalter - 05:26pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9470 of 9487)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD1016 rshowalter 3/15/01 8:23am

There are ways -- the most fundamental logical operator, I was taught by a very wise monster long ago, is not

. X implies Y and its opposite

but

. X is consistent with Y and it's opposite.

Put enough consistencies and inconsistencies together, in a tight structure, and you come as close to proof as human beings can come. This is standard procedure in court.

MD1172 rshowalter 3/19/01 11:08am ... MD1173 rshowalter 3/19/01 11:09am

On issues of nuclear balances and war and peace, both as they concern the future and as they concern a necessary understanding of the past, these ideas are important as well.

Under circumstances of much misunderstanding, and particularly in cases were deceptions may occur, the questions Kline ends with are particularly important.

(i) What are the credible data from ALL sources?

(ii) How can we formulate a model or solution that is consistent with all the credible data?

MD2629 rshowalter 4/26/01 11:14am MD2630 rshowalter 4/26/01 11:18am MD2631 rshowalter 4/26/01 11:21am

rshowalter - 05:27pm Sep 19, 2001 EST (#9471 of 9487)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD2689 rshowalter 4/28/01 7:25am MD2690 rshowalter 4/28/01 7:28am

War and Memory by TOBIAS WOLFF http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/28/opinion/28WOLF.html

" Nations have memories, too. And those memories are almost unfailingly self-serving. If there is to be a correction in memory here, let it be our own. First, let's remember what it means to send people to war. War isn't a contest between champions. It isn't even a contest between armies. War is mostly violence — economic, emotional, physical — against civilians.

" We used to praise West Germany for confronting the past honestly and teaching its children the truth. East Germany and Japan did not, and for that we judged them harshly. Today, we urge Serbia to make a full accounting of its recent history. But what of our own? Where, in our national memory, do we account for our government's complicity in El Salvador, Guatemala and Chile?

" It puzzles us that a good part of the rest of the world have come to see us as selfish bullies. It contradicts the idea we have of ourselves, and it makes us cross. Not as an exercise in self-loathing, but as a matter of the honesty we demand from others, we need to see our own past with some bravery. It won't be a complete disappointment — a lot of it is as good as we believe it is. But it will certainly chasten us, and perhaps make us less liable to adventures like the one that left those innocents dead in Thanh Phong, and turned what should have been the beautiful memories of fine young men into a tangle of competing nightmares."

MD2691 rshowalter 4/28/01 7:30am

Confronting the past honestly, or making decisions that depend on knowledge of what actually happened, one must find a workable enough truth. rshowalter 3/19/01 11:08am

(16 following messages)

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