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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?

(2291 previous messages)

rshowalter - 10:03am Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2292 of 2295)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The Cold War is over --- or ought to be. And yet, the residual angers, and injustices, make it not only possible, but likely, that other conflicts, that might otherwise be avoidable, will not be avoided.

China's military is ANGRY at the United States and its military, and responds in unfortunate, hateful ways. There are plenty of examples going the other way, as well. The ANGER between Japan and the rest of Asia is enormous. The resentment, much of it justified, between Russia, the Iron Curtain countries, and the "west" -- going every which way, and with much justification on all sides, is a powerful impediment to all forms of human comfort and complex cooperation involving the countries involved.

We need to make peace, and whole bodies of "open secrets" are pernicious. Who doubts that the United States made an effort to destroy the Soviet Union, by all available means it could arrange, secret or open? Is reviewing the clear case, set out at many times and many places elsewhere "breaking a secret?" The way the Kapos were dehumanized, and made to do what they did, has been such an open secret that it has been depicted, many times, in motion pictures -- with great realism.

We need redemptive solutions, that permit us all to understand the past, without denying core parts of it on which complex cooperation in the future must depend -- and we need to go forward.

The United States, and Japan, ought to make peace with much of Asia -- not only at the level of military posture, but emotionally, too. Both sides need to be able to understand the other side as human, and honorable in terms of some specific assumptions, accepted or not.

Lies are dangerous, there are many, many, many too many of them, and they could end the world.

The truth about most things, told gracefully, in a full context, can be faced. We need to make peace -- not keep repeating patterns that keep on forcing people into fights.

I wish "secrets" really did pull in a huge readership -- but the "secrets" that count for most, people know already, at some levels, and deny at others. A fine example is German denial of "knowledge" of what happened to the Jews during that particular holocaust.

We need to avoid making a much bigger holocaust of our own. To do so, we must face up to a few basic things that we, almost all of us, basically know already.

rshowalter - 10:56am Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2293 of 2295)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

" In dialog with Germans, since 1945, issues of "diminished association," "extenuation", and diminished responsibility have been repeatedly raised. That continues. A primal purpose of a trial is prior to punishment. A trial is supposed to determine, clearly, what actually happened. The "trail of the Germans" has never focused at the level of what was objectively known, and done, by members of the German population. Eichman, before he died, is said to have been amused at this. I feel differently, but see his reason. The thing people MOST want to pin on the Germans - what actually happened, hasn't been "made to stick" on a basis that fits comfortably within human heads. 1422: rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:26am

........

" The Milgram experiments, and related experiments, cannot have surprised professional military officers of Roman times, or of any competent force in the last two centuries. They illustrated how easy the making of soldiers is, and how much "role playing" determines action, under the usual circumstances where people don't have spare attention to think about meta issues like morality. But they were illustrations of common knowledge very widely distributed within human culture, and used routinely in the training and organization of groups at all levels.

" I feel these experiments make much more sense, and fit as evidence against the Nazis more clearly, if one is clear about what "common knowledge" of military training is, and has long been, throughout Western culture. It is not all about human freedom, or independence, or courage. It is carefully, thoughtfully adapted to people who are, to put it gently, "a little lower than the angels."

rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 7:56am

rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:00am

rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:01am

People, and whole peoples, know what they are doing, and have done, to the degree that they "need to know," though they deny it.
rshowalter "Science in the News" 8/29/00 8:03am

rshowalter - 10:58am Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2294 of 2295)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The Communism of Stalin and Mao, that the West had every reason to fight to the death, is dead . and the nations that did support Stalin and Mao support them no longer, and are trying to make their way in the world. As all nations have to do. We should all, as best we can, face up to the past, well enough so that we avoid mistakes based on lies assumed as truths, and go on.

If we do so, most reasons for wars, including substantially all reasons for wars between advanced and major nations, will be gone, and all reason for the extermination devices that are nuclear weapons will also be gone.

It isn't true that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself."

We have good reasons to fear lies as well.

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