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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 - 10:58am Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2294 of 2298)
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.

almarst-2001 - 11:08am Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2295 of 2298)

Ananova : Russians create 'artificial human brain' - http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_250302.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

almarst-2001 - 01:29pm Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2296 of 2298)

Modern Balkan revisionism - http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010416-126565.htm

"It is indeed a fallacy to assert or imply that human- or civil-rights abuses were the fundamental causes of five Balkan wars that made our intervention a moral imperative."

almarst-2001 - 01:39pm Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2297 of 2298)

Brokering Regional Conflicts - http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/A21956-2001Apr15.html

Monday, April 16, 2001; Page A16

DESPITE CONTINUING appeals from longtime U.S. allies in the Middle East, President Bush so far has refused to engage his administration fully in trying to broker an end to the worsening violence between Arabs and Israelis. Similarly, though Secretary of State Colin Powell made a stop in Macedonia last week, the White House has encouraged European governments to take the lead in managing the latest crisis in the Balkans. Meanwhile, responsibility for Northern Ireland has been shifted from the National Security Council to a back burner at the State Department. But another intractable and faraway regional conflict appears to have captured the new administration's close attention: Nagorno-Karabakh. This month Mr. Powell traveled to Key West, Fla., to host a summit between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have been at odds over that territory for a dozen years, and last week Mr. Bush met separately with the two leaders at the White House.

The conflict the administration has chosen to broker is as complex as it is obscure to most Americans. Nagorno-Karabakh, a province of Azerbaijan, is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. In 1988 they rebelled and, after a bloody war, succeeded in expelling Azeri forces and carving out a corridor linking their mountainous territory to Armenia. Now, after years of stalemate that have impoverished and embittered both countries, their presidents at last are showing increased interest in striking a deal. The United States, Russia and France long have composed a group meant to mediate the conflict; the Bush administration quickly embraced that role and was energetic in conducting the latest summit.

Why the sudden hands-on approach? Perhaps because one of the president's central preoccupations, oil, is at stake.

almarst-2001 - 01:49pm Apr 16, 2001 EST (#2298 of 2298)

Mr. Bush's Caspian Diplomacy - http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/16/opinion/16MON3.html

"Mr. Bush's involvement in negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh — an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan — is undoubtedly in part due to the extensive oil and gas reserves in the Caspian region..... A major reason for Mr. Bush's involvement is that peace would speed the development of the Caspian oil fields and the construction of a pipeline to carry the oil from Azerbaijan to the West. The favored route would avoid Russia"

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