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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 - 10:53am Apr 23, 2001 EST (#2531 of 2532)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

1828: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?7@174.AK86aHa0mB8^1132239@.f0ce57b/1972
1829: lunarchick 3/31/01 1:06pm

1830: rshowalter 3/31/01 1:13pm

" One thing, that occurs to me especially after rereading Bob Kerrey's Armed to Excess Op Ed piece, is that we could go a LONG way toward safety by substituting

" MUTUALLY ASSURED DETERRANCE"

for

" MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION"

If we just got that far, we could cut our warhead counts down from their present thousands, to 200 at most -- not enough to exterminate - and so not enough for a first strike. But plenty for deterrance.

(And with this smaller number, the world would be preserved even with bad controls -- and it would be straightforward to build fairly safe controls. I'm personally worried that the present control mechanisms, technical and human, are dangerously unstable, and could easily destroy the world unless something is done.)

China's been a good example of a country relying on assured deterrance but not extermination. Where we have something thousands of deployed warheads, they deploy missiles with something like 20 - much too small for extermination, and so too small for a first strike -- but a serious level of deterrance.

But I ALSO think, that if we come to understand what has happened, and the deceptions and threat patterns that have been involved, we may be able to do much better. I think we actually have a chance to effectively outlaw nuclear weapons, and make the world a healthier and more sane place.

And take significant steps toward making the world a more peaceful, stable place in other ways. That would take much persuasion - staff work, and a corpus of argument. I've been trying, with Dawn Riley, to try to make a contribution towards bringing that staffing and that corpus into being.

rshowalter - 10:54am Apr 23, 2001 EST (#2532 of 2532)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 3/4/01 11:46am
This thread is being read. Would anybody in the government, with a traceable name, care to deny that the nuclear weapons system the US has in place, considered as a technical and human system, is now DANGEROUSLY OBSOLETE ?

rshowalter 3/4/01 12:27pm
rshowalter 3/4/01 1:04pm

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