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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 - 10:43am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9748 of 9759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The postings below are relevant here, by way of background.

I feel that the information linked in the bolded one, MD7389, is vital. If people involved in decision making with respect to the current crises, from a number of nation states, knew this information, they could avoid many mistakes, rule out many plainly impossible courses of action, and, I believe, could find satisfactory and even beautiful, ways of handling a problem that could easily blow up on us as we are proceeding now.

MD7385 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:13pm ... MD7386 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:14pm
MD7388 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:17pm ... MD7389 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:18pm
MD7390 rshowalter 7/24/01 8:20pm ...

I think all the information in MD7389 is well worth knowing, but feel that, for now, the most important thing is Steve Kline's Index of complexity. That index is a very simple thing to use in making judgements about these sorts of problems. The index is
-

V + P + L < C < V times P times L

Knowing this simple relation can avoid many mistakes.

Understanding of this relation gives a key reason why truth is critical for good function in complex systems.

Knowledge of the relation makes if relatively easy, in practical cases, to identify patterns of solution that have a reasonable chance of being made to work .

And make it easy to see approaches that are almost certain to be unsatisfactory.

It is a simple relation, easy to use.

lunarchick - 10:47am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9749 of 9759)
lunarchick@www.com

> OUT

almarst-2001 - 11:29am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9750 of 9759)

Robert,

On Checking:

My apparently naive assumption was that that is exactly the essence of Democratic institutions, particularely the independent and truethful media serving no one but the public.

The absence of such a media may be the biggest failor of the American society. Society which became purely consumer-profit-feel-good oriented, demanding the 39sec. simple answer always expected to protect the American public self-esteem and the feeling of superiority and righteness.

As I already mentioned, the Excessive Power leads to Arrogance which leads to series of Fatal Mistakes which leads to the Loss of Power.

rshowalter - 11:56am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9751 of 9759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are many too many interconnections for you to want America to fall down.

You need America to reform in ways that help your country, and the rest of the world, and America itself.

You should be for checking, in America and elsewhere, in the specific cases involving terrorism and missile defense, and elsewhere.

Your leader, Putin, is in a powerful position to see that this checking happens, effectively and gracefully, and has already laid some valuable groudwork for doing that.

So have some other world leaders.

rshowalter - 12:00pm Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9752 of 9759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A lot of what we talked about, linked in MD2088-2089 rshowalter 4/8/01 8:30am ... makes sense here. The things suggested aren't exactly on point - - but they'd be useful indeed, for purifying the system, in a logically incremental way that could work.

These posting also show, I believe, some of the depth of your good faith and understanding - - useful things for people to know.

rshowalter - 12:09pm Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9753 of 9759)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Let me take a little time, to search and organize a little -- there's a point of hope I'd like to make. You, at least, would find ways to understand it.

The point is that, in very complex circumstances, when solutions actually exist, they are often surprisingly easy to find and focus.

The reason is that classes of solutions will be so constrained by the interdependencies, that the patterns with a chance of working are few, and reasonably easy to see, trace, and focus.

That's the case here. I don't think the key problems we're facing are intractable at all. Though sorting them out would take a bit of staffing - - maybe not even too much of that.

But they would take ways to enforce establishment of of key facts, on a workably umpired basis. Even in the face of objections from Jesse Helmes, or the President of the United States. Or anyone else.

(6 following messages)

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