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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?

lunarchick - 04:11pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1089 of 1095)
lunarchick@www.com

Noted these points (since last posting),

America shows few foreign made films. This limits insights into alternate viewpoints. Interesting that th USA is composed of migrants .. and yet the Hollywood film industry product predominates. I think we get more of a 'world view' from my Island Continent.

Why would Putin make arms sales to Iran, and not be home when the Ayallahs representative visited Moscow ?

Iranians I've spoken with think the Ayallahs influence will phase down over the next two decades ... but not if they are energized and fortified by Putin.

Pity Putin didn't think in terms of CULTURAL exchanges rather than arms sales. Iran did have Russian as a second language, now they look to English as thee language.

On MD "... enough power to destroy this world, but not enough understanding of human nature to insure the prevention of such a catastrophy ..."

That the media of N Am is into propaganda, more so than detailed truth would have been a disappointment for you Armel ... especially when they purport to be democratic, the land of the free, and excel in mass higher education that should move towards making individuals 'critical' thinkers.

Were the Engineers of the world to have a global union/body that expressed continual concerns re MD perhaps that would be a force.

Yet not as great a force as the power of the the gods of greed and cash (in the hand). The problem with the manufacture of weapons is the production line ... lines have to be kept 'moving' and to 'move' requires pushing those negative products of destruction out into the world.

So how does the little voice of reason challenge the god of CashGreed?

lunarchick - 04:15pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1090 of 1095)
lunarchick@www.com

On the Indian DEFENCE Minister having to resign because he TOOK CASH-IN-HAND .. the interesting point here is that the main media have not featured the matter. Not seen it in print in the Murdock papers. It was only covered on our international channel. To MD observers it represented the tip of an international iceburg - 8/9ths under water and not exposed ... why not?

rshowalter - 04:22pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1091 of 1095)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

VERY good question!

almarst-2001 - 04:28pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1092 of 1095)

lunarchick 3/16/01 4:11pm

"Why would Putin make arms sales to Iran, and not be home when the Ayallahs representative visited Moscow ? "

He wouldn't (he may even not be in power), if not for the way, Russia was treaded by the West, especially during the bombing of Yugoslavia. That's my deep personal belief.

He wouldn't if, as I mentioned above, the West would try to integrate the Russia rather then isolate and marginalize. There where a lot of things, particularelly intelelctual power, the World could combine in addressing the real problems we are facing today - inequality, energy crisis, crime and terrorism, fulfilling the most basic needs of more then half of this world's population.

almarst-2001 - 04:34pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1093 of 1095)

lunarchick 3/16/01 4:15pm

Less then 2 weeks ago I heard of a very difficalt negotiations, the UK aviation firm has with Indian air Force to sell advanced training aircraft. I remember very uncertain answeres about possible problems or competitors. But there was a hope of expected success, despite the fact the Indian air force is mostly uses Russian planes. Could it be the answer?

rshowalter - 04:42pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1094 of 1095)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think both sides need to understand something basic -- neither Russians, nor Americans, know how to deal with each other in the ways that complex cooperation takes -- even with their emotions under firm control, even if one side is willing to make ALL the concessions to interface with the other side. The knowledge, as it now stands, doesn't exist. Russians and Westerns Europeans have VERY different cultures, in ways that get in the way of complex cooperation, and have for centuries.

I don't mean that Russia doesn't have plenty of reason to feel ill used. But there really ARE big differences here, that make complex cooperation hard. We don't even match on the basis of aesthetics -- often enough - something that is pleasing for us looks ugly for you, and vice versa. And I don't see that changing.

But we need to know more than we do, not so we become the same, but so we can interface. I don't think anybody in America thought clearly about what would happen if the Sovied Union did fall -- and when it did happen, we screwed our part up, and the whole situation, screwed up, differently, and worse, than anybody on our side ever imagined.

I'm not saying anything so simple as "this is nobody's fault" - there are plenty of faults. I am saying that there were basic intellectual failings too -- essential parts that can't be explained as conspiracies -- parts that were big mistakes.

There was some dishonorable conduct, too. But in my view, the mistakes were very important. And nobody knew enough not to make them - or even to reconstruct at the level of socio-technical mis-fires, what actually happened.

A lot of people on both sides tried hard to cooperate, with as much good faith as you can expect within the human limits. And very often, they failed, and left baffled, and feeling ill used.

rshowalter - 04:46pm Mar 16, 2001 EST (#1095 of 1095)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I was impressed, back when I looked at a lot of American and Russian mathematics, at how consistently different the two cultures were.

On applied math, I quite often preferred the Russians. They had a solid, feet on the ground approach that often worked better, for me, than American jiving.

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