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 - 01:40pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1834 of 1864)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A point essential to complex applications of the Golden Rule .

Honesty is better than deception, and honesty, with careful thought and a few conventions, can be safer than people think. In nuclear arms negotiations, we need more honesty, more openness, and fewer lies.

Generally: To live to together, in peace and prosperity, and comfort, we need more honesty, more openness, and fewer lies. We can all stay well defended, and even become better defended, if we are more open, in ways consistent with disciplined beauty as we see it, and as we expect others to see it. lunarchick "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 5:57am We can learn to SEND IN CLEAR much more than we do. It is safer than we think, and the alternatives are more dangerous than we think.

I referred to these things, and to some concerns of mine in rshowalter 2/13/01 4:34pm

eurocore - 01:57pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1835 of 1864)

Hmmm...

I assume there's a place for 'convention' missiles in 'peace keeping'. Otherwise you have to engage in (probably bloody) invasion of a country to stop it ignoring international humanitarian standards.

NATO bombing Serbia is seen by many as a failure, but the Albanians were saved from a possible slow extremination, the Serbian casulties were in the hundreds, not millions and there was no substantial loss of NATO military personnel in the campaign. It would have been better to have resolved the situation through diplomacy, but that was tried for many weeks before NATO intervention.

Was the intervention (with bombing and missile strikes) wrong or can certain aggressive actions be justified as a means to an end?

Best Wishes,

Tom

eurocore - 01:58pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1836 of 1864)

Extremination = Extermination

(sorry)

lunarchick - 02:18pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1837 of 1864)
lunarchick@www.com

Albanians were saved from extermination

should read AlbanianOILfields were 'saved' from Russian control that was deflected to American control

seems the Yugo stuff was an 'economic - trade war' and not about political idealism and democracy and freedom and all the rest

A Yugoslavian said to me re when in the city under seige

" we listened to the news at 7pm .. we didn't understand what was being said ... later the news was put out in 3 languages ... we listened ... we still didn't understand what was being said ... what was the war about? "

Addition to the psycholgical trashing of hundreds and thousands of people who had lived side by side and intermarried in the melting pot .... the people within that war 'didn't know' what the stench of death, and emotional wrenching, was all about !!

It was about GREED and ugliness !!!

The people needed 'paperwork solutions' they needed leadership .. they needed a regular future!

---------

7,200 strategic warheads

all primed and ready ... one slip ... and the world is 'dead'

rshowalter - 02:43pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1838 of 1864)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It really is as precarious as that. And the chances of a slip are large enough to keep me sweating. The controls have mathematical errors in them - basic ones - buried deep. The controls are degenerate, and old. The people in charge of the missiles asked to have them taken down a decade ago, and have been "marking time" and, in large measure, in disarray, through the last decade of revolutionary change in our information handling systems.

I happen to be something of a hawk on the issue of military preparedness -- for real threats. All of them. Not just the tiny fraction that our military happens to be fixated on. But bombing has been grossly oversold and overtrusted, under the leadership of the United States, and it is much less effective than has generally been said -- and is less effective today.

And nuclear weapons are nuts.

lunarchick - 03:16pm Mar 31, 2001 EST (#1839 of 1864)
lunarchick@www.com

And nuclear weapons are nuts.

additionally if a 'nut' is put in charge of the weapons ............

(25 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense