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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 - 11:12am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2774 of 2778)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

But not all perspectives make equal sense.

Americans try to be beautiful -- and very often are, but only in terms of what they see, and sense, and value. Americans, like other human animals, tend to weigh everything they don't see, that they don't have to look at, at something close to zero.

And so we can be "nice people" and "monsters" at the same time.

Our sense of beauty, of the morally tolerable (the moral and the aesthetic are close) has to be better informed.

Ad of now, for Americans, it is "all right" to bomb, or threaten other nations with nuclear weapons. And yet a terrible thing to kill in a way one has to see.

We need to think about the complex circumstances here. And how we value human beings, over time, and space, and at various cultural and social removes.

It seems to me that people who are unamerican are going to have to make an unamerican point.

It is not all right for Americans to kill other people, just because they don't have to watch the agony, or count the losses.

From where we are, on military matters, the morality of the golden rule may be too big a step.

People outside of America, in the United Nations and elsewhere, may need to impose proportionality where there is none now.

jaime238a - 11:14am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2775 of 2778)

When even a person like me, that always admired both US citizens and government as a good example to pursue, start getting some sort of disgusting against this nation, might be time to review the US attitude on the "rest" of the world. The old justification of defending the US interests are going farther too much. You are building up a such unpleasantness overseas, that in some cases is bearing to the hatred. USA is part of the world, not its owner. Jaime T. de Melo Brazilian citizen

rshowalter - 11:24am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2776 of 2778)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

How wonderful it would be for the world, if the military morality of the United States became, was forced to become, somewhat closer to "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Not retroactively -- we wouldn't want to have 4-5 million american killed for what America has done, and done with a will, since WWII. Also, in the past there were extenuating circumstances that no long pertain.

Nor would that be needed to make us peaceful, much better world citizens (and richer.)

Suppose, at some time in the future, Americans (and people in other nations, too) had to think

" If we kill one of the nationals of this nation state, odds are good that we will lose one of our own people - a person we care about."

How much more beautiful that situation would be than the current one!

The strangelovian morality of nuclear weapons, where the United States stands ready to impose death, essentially without limit, for any damage done to American troops or interests, would be rejected.

Threats need to be balanced, and proportionate, and used with some sense of the complications of context.

We wouldn't have to become "gentle" for that -- but what a step upward it would be !

And how practical it would be for the prosperity of the world. Not least, for the prosperity and safety of the United States itself.

China, Russia, and other nations ought to insist on this proporionality --and they are casting about for ways to do so. There are plenty of means at hand. - Americans should not kill with impunity -- it wouldn't take nuclear weapons, in anybody's hands, to make sure that Americans knew this.

A charge of $50,000 per national killed, for any reason at all, by avoidable military action by the United States might work wonders -- and might well be collectable, given reasonable organization among unamerican interests.

And if other nations did impose proportionality, even if it were very rough, nuclear weapons wouldn't be of any use. -- People would see the basic fact that, in any reasonable human terms, nuclear weapons are much too expensive to use, in every way that a decent human being ought to respect.

And our nukes are unstably controlled. They could destroy the world. It could easily happen by accident, or by the action of a few madmen (in this world, a statistical event). We should take nuclear weapons down. Essentially everyone outside the United States wants this to happen.

Shucks like the current, totally fraudulent "missile defense initiative" are a disgrace -- a deliberate evasion of fundamentals.

American should see this, and people from other nation states should help them see it.

olliver - 11:31am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2777 of 2778)

How can anyone possibly perceive the first serious anti-missile initiative to be itself an act of aggresion? All those who are genuinely concerned about arms build-up should welcome this kind of non-aggresive defense as a step toward real defense (that is to say, real peace).

Why should the United States appease Beijing and Moscow? Will that truly make them less likely to act aggresivley in the future if ever a rogue took control of one of these nations? The policy of appeasement has failed each time it has been tried back to the days of WWII. Why should one think the principle will somehow suddenly prove effective?

I applaud the president's bold plans to defend our borders in such a way that will alleviate some of the need for the more conventional and "offensive" military.

rshowalter - 11:35am Apr 30, 2001 EST (#2778 of 2778)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Interesting question. Let's talk about it.

Could you be a little specific?

First, do you have any reason to claim that missile defense can work ?

Or are you just speaking with your emotions - on the basis of what you hope for, and want to believe?

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