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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 - 12:35am Mar 25, 2001 EST (#1466 of 1477)
lunarchick@www.com

The EC could be the new Superpower. It's laws will be humaine. It's direction peaceful. The problem with the EC was that the social emphasis overwhelmed the Business-Competitive decision making process. There is a new move by the EC to smarten up their productivity processes.

Where Russia and ER to shake hands, this can be done via a Trade and Cultural Fest. Giving an interchange of Goods (Services), Tourism options, Art-music-theatre, with the presentation of 'gifts' along with social exchanges.

Were ER to have concern re international peace and downsizing of MD .. she might include the same in her Christmas address - or an address to a distinguished gathering/or for an occasion, sooner.

A major event for ER will be the coming Commonwealth conference. The members of which include a wider membership than former commonwealth countries. Such an occasion is seen as an opportunity to take council with ER (who has had 15 Prime Ministers) and has the experience and wisdom that go with 50yrs of Reign. The next Commonwealth informal friendly meeting will occur in my State, i believe, in the next few months. It affords an opportunity for interchanges at the Heads of States level, and is becoming open slather.

lunarchick - 12:51am Mar 25, 2001 EST (#1467 of 1477)
lunarchick@www.com

ComputerScience: A point here re terminology. Words and/or phrases that have significance to the 'fifth estate' create an automatic search by it to determine from whence the use of their name eminated. Much the same way as one uses a browser. While it is excellent to be 'clear' if this has negative consequences then it may be better to be slightly oblique - yet understood, and fore-go the auto-invitation to them to perform acts of extreme intrusiveness.

rshowalter - 08:21am Mar 25, 2001 EST (#1468 of 1477)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Even when you work at being clear, there is plenty of room for misinterpretation -- outsiders who monitor correspondence are VERY often misled by it, unless they see a LOT of it, along with a great deal of detailed information about how it fits.

rshowalter - 08:22am Mar 25, 2001 EST (#1469 of 1477)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

SPIES WILL BE SPIES by David Wise includes this:

"The spying will continue, because on both sides the temptation is too great to stop. All countries want to learn each other's secrets, and that desire did not end with the cold war. Presidents — on both sides — demand information on which to base their policy decisions, and b secret information is highly prized. Intelligence obtained clandestinely has a special cachet. In this country, the S.V.R. targets military, technological, cryptographic, economic and political information. Many of its officers are smooth, sophisticated and well- trained. Russia is willing to pay millions of dollars to its best sources, as Moscow did to Aldrich Ames, its mole inside the C.I.A. who was convicted of espionage in 1994.

"Washington, in turn, maintains a vast intelligence apparatus, estimated to cost $30 billion a year, ranging from satellites whirring overhead to human spies on the ground. In a 1994 speech, then C.I.A. director R. James Woolsey declared frankly, "What we really exist for is stealing secrets." Yuri Kobaladze, the former spokesman for the S.V.R., was equally candid. "There are friendly states," he said in 1993, "but not friendly intelligence services."