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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 - 12:31pm Feb 19, 2001 EST (#717 of 722)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In lunarchick 2/19/01 12:23am Dawn suggests that looking at problems in the neuroscience is distraction from "the big picture."

I disagree.

Many of the problems in the neurosciences are similar to many in the military. Good people are put in positions where they interact together to get ugly results, where under different rules, results might be beautiful A key question, for both the military and the sciences, is "how can things be arranged so that the real people involved act IN the national interest, and not in ways that conflict with it?"

Another concern, where nuclear policy is involved, is how may changes be made safely , and gracefully?

lunarchick - 03:20am Feb 20, 2001 EST (#718 of 722)
lunarchick@www.com

I was thinking of 'Big Picture' in visionary terms (management).

Thinking 'Big Picture' in respect of the 'best' for a Nation in a global context.

Failure to see the big picture can relate to navel gazing ... in that, folks may think they are riding along nicely, yet don't see the edge of the cliff (redundancy of former policies), and with attention focused on minutiae, sail right over the edge landing in pieces in the canyon below.

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lunarchick - 06:02am Feb 20, 2001 EST (#719 of 722)
lunarchick@www.com

Noted in a documentary on army training, that there is a move to stop bastardization of others. The move is from the development of courage to the new paradigm of 'moral courage', where the individual has a self-sense of right (from wrong).

The objective is to have a humaine 'thinking' army.

rshowalter - 08:05am Feb 20, 2001 EST (#720 of 722)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There is a remarkable about of moral training in the US military, as well.

mhunter20 - 10:00am Feb 20, 2001 EST (#721 of 722)

A question (paraphrased) that came up a few posts back:

Would a US soldier disobey a direct order to initiate nuclear attack based on moral grounds?

This question reminds me of a movie produced many years ago in which the President orders the destruction of a US city in order to avoid full-blown warfare after a Soviet city is accidentally destroyed by a US bomb.

In the movie, the airforce pilot sent to drop a nuclear bomb on NYC suffers a heart attack while executing his mission but successfully completes it.

The idea that the President would order the destruction of a US city was questionable (note: the first lady was in NYC at the time) but the idea that the pilot would follow orders to bomb a US city was, at least to me, much less questionable.

rshowalter - 10:44am Feb 20, 2001 EST (#722 of 722)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'm not sure I agree.

A pilot who is assigned to destroy a Russian city with a nuke will rehearse his actions, and rationalizations for them, again and again and again, likely enough with discussion with military colleagues, and odds are, in the US Air Force, after counseling and reassurance from a Chaplain. (I haven't read literature on the point written by USAF chaplains, but there must be some heartfelt writing on the point.)

Much earlier in my life, I did read many hundreds of pages of "philosophy" written by German academics, in support of Nazi positions - and found myself, with a sharpened ablity to read German, but saddened at how easily people can rationalize.

But rationalization is only so easy. It takes a lot of work to talk yourself into actions that would kill hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people. Most people have to discipline themselves to kill any human being - though militaries do supply that discipline.

If a President asked a pilot to bomb an american city, there might not be time for the rationalizing process. And so the pilot might not be able to carry out the order. I think most probably couldn't do it.

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Habits, including habits of thought, can be inflexible indeed:

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." - Tolstoy

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