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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 - 06:06pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2597 of 2603)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There is a pattern of senior "military-industrial complex" people getting very rich, quite quickly, after govenrment service.

The way that's done, in this society, is by particpation in speculative investments, bought (or gifted) at very low values, and then sold to someone else for much higher values (or held at much higher valuations.)

It seems that this sort of thing has become part of the military-industrial "culture." I think that this is something NEW - that came with the Cold War, and especially, in the beginning, with aspects of the cold war linked to nuclear weapons. Now, the pattern seems pretty widespread -- and not, it seems, anything anyone feels a need to hide.

The pattern is problematic.

Government people in on these deals, as long as they are in on them, are vulnerable in a thousand untraceable ways to influence - including painful, fearful influence -- by people who stand to gain and lose very large amounts of money from their decisions.

And the people in a position of public trust are also vulnerable to all the instabilities that exist in "speculative finance" so long as they are in on these deals. In "high risk investments" - a sense of the future (that can shift quickly, and that can depend very much on status issues) makes the difference between assets worth millions , and assets worth nothing.

That means everybody in the business runs scared, and has reason to.

rshowalter - 06:07pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2598 of 2603)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

This is a world where a "high status name" -- if untarnished - may be worth many millions to a group collecting rich, status hungry gambler-investors. --- But where a change in the status of that name, due perhaps to circumstances beyond any control, and perhaps to public spirited decision, radically shifts values -- and can shift them, if debts are involved, from positive to negative values. -- This is a world with many temptations, so much complexity, that it must distract anyone involved in it from the disinterested judgement government service is supposed to merit.

For any human being -- that is, any being "a little lower than the angels" -- involvement in these deals, and in this world must be both a burden, and a bias.

How many decisions, that might be in the national interest are people so bound - operationally unable to make?

How vulnerable are people so bound to blackmail - perhaps very direct blackmail- - perhaps veiled pressure ?

Working through the numbers, with some awareness of how speculative finance works, I'm concerned.

rshowalter - 06:09pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2599 of 2603)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

A person with more ties that he can count, both emotional, and relational, and financial, may be able to give exemplary service. But it would be very hard to be sure he was doing so. It would be a lot to expect.

How hard might it be for a person in such a position -- or hoping to be in such a position -- to face up to uncomfortable truths, that happened to be embarrassing?

possumdag - 06:11pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2600 of 2603)
Possumdag@excite.com

Interesting headlines today http://www.economist.com/ raises doubts re the new PM Japan .. in the header!

Japan's maverick Apr 24th 2001

Junichiro Koizumi, a politician regarded by party elders as a dangerous maverick, has been elected leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and is set to become prime minister.

There is a certain amount of RANDOMNESS as to who leads a country. Sometimes people have good intent, othertimes they are incompetent, sometimes they are evil and mad.

rshowalter - 06:20pm Apr 25, 2001 EST (#2601 of 2603)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The Japanese system has been full of too many lies, too long - and with defective information in the feedback loops, performance is defective.

TRUTH is very important in sociotechnical systems -- because they have to be managed by feedback. And as they get more complicated, the importance of truth increases at something like the rate one espects from a factorial ( N ! ) series.

Unfortunately, the possibilites for corruption of information flows increase with complexity too.

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