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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 - 06:22pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2670 of 2676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Good News !

Minister: Russia Downgrades Nuclear Force Status by REUTERS http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-ru.html

We should take similar steps to make our nuclear forces accountable, logically and financially, for plans, rationale, and past action -- including "informal actions.

possumdag - 06:56pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2671 of 2676)
Possumdag@excite.com

I commented here

On the last para of the last ref it says

"" But arms talks with the United States hit a snag after President Bush said he would step out of the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty if necessary to build a national anti-missile defense system. ""

I wasn't paying attention in '72 .. can anyone offer, in the proverbial nut-shell, the jist of the Anti-Ballistic_M_T ?

rshowalter - 07:30pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2672 of 2676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

My nerves are a bit frayed just now -- let me figure out what I ought to say --- there's a need to balance (entertainment and other benefits) against risks.

The Russians were trying, desperately, to find a way to de-escalate threats, and were hoping, and trying for total nuclear disarmament, and were doing their double damndest (within their awkwardnesses and limitations) to convince us that, no matter how terrible they were, they didn't want to exterminate or be exterimnated -- they wanted nuclear weapons down. I got into trouble when I came to believe them.

possumdag - 07:53pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2673 of 2676)
Possumdag@excite.com

I sometimes wonder about the USA!?!

That these guys never explored imperialism has left a deficit, in that, they've missed out on interaction with other countries and their peoples, and consequently have 'narrow', might i say 'cowboy-western viewpoints', where the only solution to problems is seemingly the size of the missile.

It's forever 'High Noon' at the whitehouse .. the highway between Washington and that 'Rogue other' is an empty space ... The President has his finger on the Missile Trigger ... like a kindy-child he yells "My gun is bigger, faster, more nukey than yours" ... the proposed victim runs to 'World Mother' who intervenes and tells 'Billy-the-kid' to go back to his (white) house where he's expected for tea.

Had Americans 'lived in the world' a little more, then their generic culture might be more inclusive and less isolationalist.

That American Presidents continually hold the world to randsom via their unfailing 'Bully' attitude .. suggests a need for proposed presidential candidates to first have 'lived' around the world .. especially as they have 'world standing' (if they function) in the Presidential role. Ignorance of others, combined with a lack of empathy for international-peoples, manifests as abuse of power.

possumdag - 07:57pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2674 of 2676)
Possumdag@excite.com

There was a doco on Vietnam on tv.. That someone, somewhere, in authority was happy to defoliate and poison a whole country using agent orange .. suggests that warmongers are incapable of 'thinking through' the fullest consequences and 'flow-on' of an action. The pain from use of chemicals flowed back into the USA as troups later died.

rshowalter - 08:10pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2675 of 2676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It is uglier, or at least less justified, than it used to be.

Solzehetsyn's GULAG ARCHIPELEGO recorded a history that was as terrible as it was. We had reason to fear, and to wish to defeat the Soviet Union.

There were, in Eisenhower's time, and even in the early Kennedy administration, some extenuating circumstances.

rshowalter - 08:11pm Apr 27, 2001 EST (#2676 of 2676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

But by the time of Gorbachev, I don't think there was any moral justification whatsoever for what we did -- and after the fall of the Soviet Union, there wasn't a shred of justification.

The Russians should know that, without discounting the evils that did occur in the USSR, and many were completely home grown horrors -- the Communist system was under such pressure, from the beginning of WWII on - essentially without letup -- that there really was no chance for Communism to work out a way of accomplishing the ideals, the good things that it stood for.

And the US application of that pressure was brutal -- and it was done without the consent of the American people, and without the clear, competent knowledge of most politicians, by a conspiracy that used every dirty tactic anybody could learn from Nazi practice.

I believe that a huge amount of money has been stolen, and that the high ideals of much of America have been degraded, and that we should fix this.

Nuclear weapons are obsolete menaces and we should take them down. And we should (and we could) redeploy our technical assets to make peace work.

I think the Russians ought to be entitled to considerable help. So should the North Koreans --one way or another.

And some real, deep corruption needs to be understood, and set right.

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