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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 - 03:22pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2659 of 2660)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We can ask that our security arrangements be beautiful.
rshowalter 2/19/01 12:22pm

Ugliness is an interesting related notion -- a notion that, with the Kerrey-Vietnam story, may be especially on people's minds now.
rshowalter 2/19/01 12:26pm

In rshowalter 2/19/01 12:26pm
I put a matter very gently indeed:

" The idea of a missile defense is a beautiful idea in its own terms, but performance to date, and technical prospects, seem far from beautiful, or even technically defensible."

It has seemed worthwhile to be a little less gentle, though still polite, recently: rshowalter 4/25/01 6:21pm

rshowalter - 03:24pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2660 of 2660)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

rshowalter 2/24/01 9:25am presents a sermon, http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/sermon.html that ends with an important statement about judgement -- and how the fate of the world can rest on the judgement of one man.

The last half of the sermon tells the story of how, in the 80's, the fate of the world DID depend on one man--- a colonel in the missile forces of the USSR.

It is a point responsible people should consider when they consider the actions, the industry, and the integrity of George W. Bush, and the people on whom he depends.

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