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 - 01:35pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2102 of 2105)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/world/09PLAN.html Powell Warns of Damage to Ties as Crisis Drags On by JANE PERLEZ

starts with this:

"The stakes for the United States- China relationship were quite high. President Bush came into office pledging a different policy toward China, calling Beijing a strategic competitor rather than a strategic partner.

and ends with this:

"Mr. Roy said he would advise against a more general apology but said it was vital that the two sides not get boxed in with hardened positions.

That is good negotiating advice, but it may not be good to have a situation where, whenever any nation objects, basic facts cannot be established. "Hard positions" make negotiations difficult -- but "hard facts" arranged so that all concerned are "reading from the same page" make fair and stable negotiations possible.

rshowalter - 01:37pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2103 of 2105)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Under current usages, questions of fact are often not determined. There is no closure, no matchable, trustable standard, on what the facts are. And so, quite often, nothing can be decided.

In the interest of peace --not "rule of the lawless" but "rule of law" -- this is unfortunate.

For complex cooperation, it is important to determine what the truth is. The internet radically extends human memory and the human ability to handle complexity. It also makes more complex cooperations possible.

The technology of the internet is making the techniques of opinion manipulation developed before WWI (and highly evolved since) much more vulnerable than they used to be, because many more words are available; content can be available, subject to very extensive crossreferencing over very extended times; and there is therefore much more possibility of getting issues considered to a level that permits closure.
rshowalter 4/1/01 12:54pm

The enemy of political truth (internationally as well as nationally) the main shield for political lying, is the passage of time, and the limitation of human memory. The costs of memory, and the costs of having evidence and argument reappear at later times, are both costs that are shifting radically down with the internet.. rshowalter 4/1/01 12:59pm

If groups having an interest in the rule of law, and predictablility, worked, very openly, to establish questions of fact and did so credibly - to the level of closure, a great deal more might be done with the international institutions that now exist.

rshowalter - 01:42pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2104 of 2105)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The military means at the disposal of the USA are very inflexible, -- they reduce,in the end, to use of troops under conditions where US casualties are minimal, under rare conditions, and "easier" threats to use nuclear weapons, and threats, and actual use, of bombing against undefended targets. These are formidible means, for some purposes, but set against the complexity and multiple connection and articulation of the world, these are limited means. These means are not fitted for, and almost helpless in the face of, many challenges. Including challenges of ideas, both based on fact, and on reasonable senses of human decency.

The diplomatic means at the disposal of the US depend, very often, on the consent of other nations. That consent depends on issues involving the facts of particular cases, and reasonable senses of human decency that are often widely shared.

The US is not an invulnerable island, even if she wished to ignore the interests of all other nations, which she does not consistently do. The costs that might be imposed on the US, commercially, and as a culture, for resisting the truth too long would be unsustainable, once the truth was fully set out, accessible, and backed by human organization.

The US, though the first among nations, is not above the law -- nor is it in her interest to be so. rshowalter 4/7/01 5:35am

(1 following message)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense