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?

lunarchick - 10:11pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2113 of 2119)
lunarchick@www.com

The report i heard suggested that German youth and Russian youth were making good interpersonal relations at this conference. Good for future business networks. The conference broke into five sectors including culture and science, and Putin was attending it ... hence if Showalter's theory is correct .. little activity from the "A's" over yesterday and today :)

lunarchick - 10:12pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2114 of 2119)
lunarchick@www.com

Note the great links offered by DW.

lunarchick - 11:12pm Apr 9, 2001 EST (#2115 of 2119)
lunarchick@www.com

Rogue President Bush's actions of late, calling China a Rogue State .... was a challenge to China to take action against America, so as not to loose face. China did. Now America does not like it!

China issued this jokey statement today

"Send your Tourists ..... not your spy planes!"

illustrating that they are interested in trade and commerce rather than rogue Presidential goadings re Missile Defence issues.

dirac_10 - 01:55am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2116 of 2119)

Sure wish we had a swell missle defense right about now.

lunarchick - 03:56am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2117 of 2119)
lunarchick@www.com

It's called 'intelligence' as in a smart brain .. and you're right .. America doesn't have it!

lunarchick - 04:53am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2118 of 2119)
lunarchick@www.com

Deutsche Welle: 09.04.2001

Relations between Germany and Russia can be described as positive, writes the German Bild Zeitung. The German chancellor and the Russian president have a good working relationship just as did Helmut Kohl and Boris Yeltsin.

There are also 160 twin-city relationships between the two states and the youth of the two countries are coming together as never before.

On the negative side however, there are still a number of deficits to resolve. Moscow still owes a large portion of its foreign debt to Germany, over 15 billion dollars and there is still little legal protection for foreign investments in Russia. Russia, the paper adds, must also work towards resolving conflicts such as Chechnya diplomatically and not militarily.

And there is also the issue of the necessity of an independent media in the country following the take-over of an independent television station by the country's state-dominated gas monopoly, Gasprom.

These are the issues the two leaders will be talking about, the paper thinks.

The Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung looks at the demonstrations to save the country's independent media and wonders if the Russian people are as interested in a free press as are international observers.

More pro-democracy protesters took to the streets of Moscow than has been the case in a number of years. Their numbers however also reflect just how weak the movement actually is.

The country's communists, by comparison, are able to mobilise far greater numbers for their annual celebrations marking the October revolution.

By contrast, the paper points out, the majority of Russia's population views demonstrations as being a waste of time.

The Berlin BZ newspaper thinks that it would also be a waste of time, and also a mistake, if the German chancellor were to attempt to play the role of the intermediary charged with reducing tensions between the United States, Russia and China; tensions that have not been helped by such things as NATO eastward expansion. The chancellor, the paper writes, may be tempted to want to step in and play the role of the intermediary on such issues, but he shouldn't, the BZ thinks. He can best serve Germany if he makes it clear from the start that Berlin will not play the role of the shuttle diplomat on such issues.

rshowalter - 06:19am Apr 10, 2001 EST (#2119 of 2119)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

In diplomacy, and the "trial balloon diplomacy" that sometimes occurs when thoughts are floated in newspapers, much can often be learned by switching "sign" -- from negation to affirmation for instance.

" The Berlin BZ newspaper thinks that it would also be a waste of time, and also a mistake, if the German chancellor were to attempt to play the role of the intermediary charged with reducing tensions between the United States, Russia and China; tensions that have not been helped by such things as NATO eastward expansion. The chancellor, the paper writes, may be tempted to want to step in and play the role of the intermediary on such issues, but he shouldn't, the BZ thinks. He can best serve Germany if he makes it clear from the start that Berlin will not play the role of the shuttle diplomat on such issues."

This can be read as a note to readers:

" We are thinking about whether or not the German chancellor should attempt to play the role of the intermediary charged with reducing tensions between the United States, Russia and China .... and think you should think about it, too."

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense