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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?

rshowalter - 10:19am Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2349 of 2354)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

lunarchick 4/17/01 11:35pm in this thread, a more recent suicide was talked about ......

2070 - rshowalter 4/6/01 9:07pm
CIA Senior Analyst an Apparent Suicide, Police Say by Vernon Loeb and Tom Jackman Washington Post , Friday, April 6, 2001; Page A19 http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45714-2001Apr5.html

Very closed, disciplined societies, such as Japan, and intelligence agencies, can become adept at getting people who "do not fit" to commit suicide. rshowalter 4/7/01 5:35am

Many feel, and I feel, that societies that show themselves adept in this way have so much coercive power over the members of their societies that the "independent judgement" and collective agreements of the groups are not to be trusted -- such societies are prone to collective insanities, and very unfortunate actions.

For instance, it is no longer contested that CIA analysis of Russian capabilities and intentions in the Cold War was systematically misleading (as well as very expensive).

Openness, under current circumstances, and with due regard to all the details of circumstances, is a safer way for collective cooperation to get to right (and humanly decent) answers.

almarst-2001 - 10:21am Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2350 of 2354)

In case someone needs to have a break and laugh: http://www.cia.com/

rshowalter - 10:31am Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2351 of 2354)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Almarst_2001... Russia has every right, and every obligation, to come up with social arrangements that work for Russian people under Russian circumstances.

With both people and circumstances as they actually are, and not as anyone might wish them to be.

You especially have a right to all the usages that other advanced countries (including especially the United States) actually use -- not only the ones that they admit to using.

When it matters enough, the US can be a "command economy" with stark coordination -- and everybody who runs effectively in the system knows it.

In a complex society, you'll need mixed strategies, that fit your needs and circumstances.

Even so -- and this may seem hard for Russian society, but I think it is crucial to insist on it - you need to be open, whenever possible, about what you are doing, and how you are doing it -- not only to yourselves (and that is very important) but to the outside world, as well.

When capitalist schema work for you without mofification - especially the patterns of internet globalization that Friedman celebrates, you should take advantage of them.

When other patterns must be used, or compromises have to be made - Russia has to make them so that Russia's system works.

If the reasons are clear, there ought not to have to be any apologies. That may mean (in my view, does mean) that in the world of ideas, Russia will need, for practical and also emotional reasons, to defend aspects of its Communist past that did in fact work well.

There were some.

rshowalter - 10:31am Apr 18, 2001 EST (#2352 of 2354)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I'll be working hard today, to set out more about this -- since it is central to practical function and legitimacy -- and to military balances of all kinds.

I'll be thinking especially hard about the needs for a "free press" in the sense that Russia needs a free press -- and needs it desperately.

Russia, like the US, has every right to find ways to make of itself an coherent culture - a coordinated, functional, proud nation state.

Russia, I believe, can do so in a way that advances the causes of freedom and peace all over the world --- rather than retards them.

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