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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 - 04:02pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#742 of 743)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I believe that everybody concerned about matters of defense, and especially nuclear deployments, should consider carefully the concerns about the “military-industrial complex” set out in the FAREWELL ADDRESS of President Dwight D. Eisenhower January 17, 1961.

With circumstances that appear to show a disproportion and operational mismatch between means and ends, the speech seems to me to raise issues of crucial importance today.

rshowalter - 04:28pm Feb 21, 2001 EST (#743 of 743)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Neither information flows nor information-related defenses are the same as they were 30 years ago, when basic nuclear policies dealt with a more stable technical world.

(It also happens that most defenses, in practice, are information-related defenses.)

Fixed positions are considerably more vulnerable to circumvention than they used to be -often more vulnerable by many orders of magnitude.

I believe that it might to great good to illustrate this, in a way that might dramatically aid the cause of world understanding and safety. Suppose the government of Russia were to stage a nonlethal attack on the information flow defenses of the United States of America.

An entirely nonlethal attack, in the cause of peace.

I offer the following thought experiment.

. . . .

Suppose that officers of the Russian government, after notification of the U.S. government and press, and with monitoring by government or press if desired, made telephone contact with the very distinguished signatories of the Global Security Institute appeal as of October 2, 2000 ?

This woud be technically easy to do.

Calls would be to discuss a few simple questions, which the signatories would have been informed about beforehand.

Id suggest that the essential, and unchangeable distrust associated with nuclear weapons be discussed, and other issues of interest to clear communication in the negotiations - issues connected to questions of FACT where the truth should be in the interest of all nations interested in safety.

Phone transcripts, with permission, would be made available on the internet.

Some questions that these extremely distinguished American citizens were prevented from raising at the time of the U.S. presidential debate in Boston could be discussed.

Key issues, that need to be established, that are not now discussable, might become discussable by many thinking people. The press, which is now uninterested in these questions, might become interested.