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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 - 08:29am Feb 24, 2001 EST (#775 of 780)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Here are some excellent sources, eloquent, I believe, in their ugly combination of hard effort and frustration, testifying to how hard people have tried, and are trying, to get to nuclear disarmament on the basis of the false assumption that trust, on these matters, is really possible.

THE ACRONYM INSTITUTE

Disarmament Issues in the UK Parliament .... by Nicola Butler

Disarmament Diplomacy, published since January 1996, is the successor journal to Nuclear Proliferation News.

Editors Introduction...Disarmament Diplomacy -- Issue No 53

Breaking the CD Impasse: Statements by Vladimir Petrovsky And Rebecca Johnson ....Disarmament Diplomacy -- Issue No 53

rshowalter - 09:17am Feb 24, 2001 EST (#776 of 780)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A lot of good people, from many nations, have been wearing their hearts out, trying to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, from the time of Hiroshima on.

People know how precarious things are, and how large the risks are.

Secular people, all over the world, know that.

Religious people of all kinds, of all faiths, all over the world know that.

People also know that the "fail safe" equipment to which we entrust our lives is far from reliable, and has never been reliable. That knowledge is so widely held, that competent pastors can preach sermons, assuming that everyone knows this. Everyone does.

rshowalter - 09:25am Feb 24, 2001 EST (#777 of 780)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I have the priviledge of posting a sermon, When the Foundations are Shaking by Dr. James Slatton of the River Road Church (Baptist) in Richmond, Va. - a church I grew up in, a church where my parents have both been deacons, and active in other ways. This church is much like the one Jimmy Carter goes to, theologically, though it is much richer, and more republican, and perhaps basically more conservative. River Road Church has resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention, for various reasons, but is well within the conservative Protestant tradition. I have deep intellectual, moral, and personal respect for the people at River Road Church.

I believe that most people of good will, including exalted ones, could benefit from the 21 minutes this sermon takes.

WHEN THE FOUNDATIONS ARE SHAKING ..... by James Slatton . . . . available in RealMedia, Quicktime, and Windows Media7 formats

I think any military leader, or political leader, who ever attends any kind of religious service, anywhere in the world, could relate to this work.

I think any member of the clergy, of any faith or creed, anywhere in the world, could relate to this work. I wish religious people in a position of leadership WOULD listen to it.

People of a more secular view might want to skip ahead to 9:27 in the sermon . Thereafter, it is a tribute to a Russian colonel, who kept nuclear war from destroying us all, during the Reagan administration. And a teaching of lessons that most people know, and live well by, that are important to the preservation of our world. I believe that people of enough good will to be human would be interested, and moved, by this part of the sermon, no matter how secular their views.

The notion is abroad that no politician can do much about nuclear weapons, because they cannot get their populations behind them. They think so because, when people are surveyed, no one wants to talk about nuclear weapons.

This is the wrong answer. To deal with this threat, people in a position to influence events must face it. So the matter has to be realistically discussed.

James Slatton's sermon offers a triumphant example of how possible and practical such realistic discussion is.

James Slatton is a fine man and an effective clergyman. But he is not uniquely able or influential. There are many, many clergymen, all over the world, of many faiths, who could, and often do, say similar things, in similarly powerful ways.

The motivation for missile defense largely comes from concern about the seriousness of the threat from nuclear weapons. Approaching the problem with care, and a search for disciplined beauty, we should be able to make the world a far safer and more humane place than it now is. That is Bush's basic objective, I believe, and we need to carefully consider proper means to actually achieve that end.

lunarchick - 06:40pm Feb 24, 2001 EST (#778 of 780)
lunarchick@www.com

Wimmin work for peace

mister_shadow - 12:19am Feb 25, 2001 EST (#779 of 780)

It's simple folks.

It's much, much cheaper to build decoys and countermeasures. It's much cheaper to simply build more missles to overwhelm the defense.

The pentagon's money would be better spent on other things, like better training and modernizing conventional weapons.

lunarchick - 08:01am Feb 25, 2001 EST (#780 of 780)
lunarchick@www.com

'money would be better spent on other things, like better training and modernizing conventional weapons'

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Why not go back to basics and ask what the US is really trying to achieve?

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Peace over the Empire ... that ultimately is the Empire of the world-mind may be best achieved via other vehicles and domains.

Salt worked for one empire, religion another, pop-culture a different empire.

The empire to conquor is the mind of tomorrow .. mastery of which demands advancement via R&D in areas that will be of future 'value'.

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