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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 - 04:28pm Mar 9, 2001 EST (#898 of 903)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are a lot of angry people around, and plenty of dangerous ones -- some with very bad dispositions. We aren't going to get out of this mess with an orgiastic conversion to mutual love and respect. We have to be careful, and wary, and make peace a step at a time. And when it REALLY counts (and in the field of nuclear weapons control, it really counts) we need to accomodate the distrust that is there, and has to be there , rather than maintain the fiction that we can "trust" each other.

almarstel2001 - 04:59pm Mar 9, 2001 EST (#899 of 903)

rshowalter 3/9/01 4:28pm

Again, Why the US has to maintain a 300bn/year military? Why all those military bases are maintained around the glob? Why all this new aircraft cariers are still built full speed? Those are not defensive wearpons. They are profoundly OFFENSIVE!

rshowalter - 07:06pm Mar 9, 2001 EST (#900 of 903)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Almarstel2001 , you raise reasonable concerns, and I share some of them. In rshowalter 1/9/01 6:40am I wrote this:

"Some months ago, I made contact with a man I've known a while, and respect, who is, at the least, "well connected" with the CIA. We discussed a number of things - among them, my view that they have mistakes in the math they are using for guidance and control that probably, in my view, eliminate any good chance of their system ever working, especially in multiple attack circumstances. He told me he consulted with some of his associates, and asked questions that lead me to think it probable that he did. Contacts went so far that I gave this man information about e-mail accounts that let him or his people monitor my e-mail -something I told him I didn't like, but that they could do. I have reason to believe this monitoring has occurred.

"This man was also given an invitation to accompany me if he wished, with associates if he chose, to meetings I was proposing to have with an influential non-governmental organization.

In rshowalter 2/19/01 12:29pm I wrote about the experience some more. .... I had reactions from a CIA contact.

"I made contact with this man, setting out the proposal for nuclear but not conventional disarmament set out in #266, rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am , giving the agency permission to monitor some email accounts I shared with Dawn Riley, and offering other cooperation.

"After staff discussions, he got back to me. It was clear that a major problem his staff colleagues had was to be sure that I was proposing nuclear but not conventional disarmament. In the discussion, it seemed that these staff colleagues did not have a clear sense of what the US military establishment was in existence for.

In rshowalter 1/9/01 6:40am I also wrote this:

"To check the S-K math efficiently, they'd have to talk to me. They've acted in such a way as to indicate to me that they take my work somewhat seriously, and yet they have not done so. It would be easy for them to do so. I'd cooperate totally, and they have reason to know it.

"Perhaps I'm biased (no doubt I am) but I've come to doubt their confidence in their StarWars work, and their public statements about it.

"In terms of my own experience, and interpreting what I read in the news, it seems to me that they aren't conducting a serious, public spirited effort to defend the country in a workable technical way, but are doing something else.

rshowalter - 07:07pm Mar 9, 2001 EST (#901 of 903)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Since the time, as experience has accumulated, my doubts have been reinforced. In rshowalter 2/14/01 7:36am I spoke of how the proposal I made in #266 -- rshowalt 9/25/00 7:32am hinged on an insight in cryptography -- and Dawn Riley and I did a demonstration.

That demonstration extended from lunarchick "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 5:57am to rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 1:26pm

There were stresses involved in this demonstration that I felt should not have occurred.

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