New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 05:58pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1402 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You need SOME PEOPLE who can talk RELIABLY about complicated technical and technical matters WITH AMERICANS AND OTHER PEOPLE so they can work with you. That ought to be high on Putin's list of national objectives.

Now, much too often, such conversations end in fights or misunderstandings. And that's not a problem of goodwill, from a business point of view, nearly so much as it is a problem that shifts a downward - disqualifying you as a business partner.

rshowalter - 06:22pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1403 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You also need to be able to talk to EACH OTHER with a higher level of social and technical reliablity than you often show.

rshowalter - 06:33pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1404 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Every single negative thing that business people frequently repeat about "Russia being a bad place to do business" you need to study carefully, and FIX.

All the concerns are about reliability -- about problems with a .

As a nation:

You need laws that are predictable.

You need to pay your bills.

You need to only say "I understand" when you do understand --- which means you have to be better than you are at checking for misunderstanding.

and you need to concentrate on building on your strengths, as everyone else has to do as well. You are Russians -- you have to be good at figuring out how to be good Russians.

rshowalter - 06:37pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1405 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The United States hasn't known how to make peace with you, and settled on a policy of scaring you into collapse -- and it worked, and we weren't honest to our own people while it was going on -- and American initiative being what it is, a lot of stealing may have been going on, as well.

But once you collapsed, we still didn't know how to work with you (and maybe had forgotten how to talk to you, though we never knew how to do it well)-- and so things have stayed a mess.

The exercise of cleaning up the terribly dangerous vestiges of the Cold War might go a long way toward solving these problems.

(And the world may blow up if we don't do it.)

rshowalter - 06:44pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1406 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I was talking a while back about Russian staffers talking to authors of particular books about particular differences in view. I wasn't kidding. It wouldn't necessarily cost much. But if Russian staffers could do THAT, they'd know a lot more about workable business negotiation. And the writers, likeley enough, would have good hearts, and try to sort your skils out.

I was talking a while back about a "dry run" where Russia, and other countries, worked through with journalists a mock nuclear disarmament, and military balance deal - as realistically as possible, and with as clear explanations as possible.

Russian staff would sweat bucketfulls in order to do that well -- but if they did the work, and put out the effort - with very articulate people of good will (and journalists are that) they'd learn a lot they need to know in order to actually get peace.

The same things they need to know to actually get prosperity.

For one thing, the dialog would involve one status exchange after another -- and Russians need to learn how these work, and how to do them.

rshowalter - 06:47pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1407 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

And if Russians actually understood - down to "atomic scale" detail, how ONE complicated and problematic negotiation works itself out in America, they'd learn a lot, that they don't know now, that they need again and again.

It should be EASY for Russians to negotiate to a reliable closure with competent people of other cultures. Now, it wrenches your guts. And it wrenches ours.

(And for reasons like that, the world may blow up.)

rshowalter - 07:02pm Mar 23, 2001 EST (#1408 of 8073)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I have a situation intentionally crafted, at some considerable trouble to myself and others, as a model case for nuclear arms talks, at the University of Wisconsin.

At Condaleeza Rice's own Stanford University, there are records of a very similar row, in turbulence. Kline spoke eloquently but evasively about it in the chapter I copied here.

(6665 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense