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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 - 06:55am May 2, 2001 EST (#2954 of 2996)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I can identify with and sympathize with almost everything (with some reservations about emotion) set out in davidding 5/1/01 11:50pm
artemis130 5/1/01 11:52pm
artemis130 5/1/01 11:54pm
atwnw 5/1/01 11:55pm
artemis130 5/2/01 12:06am
artemis130 5/2/01 12:08am
faridka 5/2/01 12:30am
lunarchick 5/2/01 3:12am
wjniemi 5/2/01 5:33am

And yet I can still say, MAYBE "so far so good." rshowalter 5/1/01 11:19pm

GW Bush is an important actor here, but not the only one. Star Wars isn't going to happen today or tomorrow, and it is clear that we are here today, and if we are not to be gone tomorrow, we have to make workable accomodations, for situations and people, as they really are, day by day.

It seems to me that GREAT progress has been made, in six weeks time.

We can't ask Bush to do things that are impossible for him, in the real situation he's in, with the real people he deals with, with the real committments (like them or not) that he's made and is enmeshed in. Things have come a long way, in the right direction.

That doesn't mean we should defer to him, or think he's right on everything, or even right about much. But I feel we do need to remember that Bush isn't "free" in the way a writer is free. Bush has to move in a logically incremental fashion.

Bush's public statements yesterday, looking at the whole situation, look to me like theay are, at the least, consistent with good outcomes, within the human limits.

I feel that it would be a disaster to trust President Bush, defer to his judgements, or defer to the judgements of his advisors, without checking. The stakes are too high to trust anybody without checking, and Bush has connections that subject his decisions to specific questions.

I feel that other world leaders should stand on their own judgements, and represent the interests they are supposed to. I don't think they should defer to Bush (or anybody else, on an issue as important as this) without checking.

The press shouldn't be nearly as trusting as it mostly is on this matter, and I'm thankful for the independence the Times so often shows.

Still, considering the world as it is, and not as we might wish it to be, and considering the players, not as we might wish them to be, but as they are, I'd still consider, as one possibility among some others:

" maybe , so far so good."

rshowalter - 06:57am May 2, 2001 EST (#2955 of 2996)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We're involved in a process of persuasion, involving real people, and real situations, for stakes that are as high as they can reasonably be.

rshowalter - 07:05am May 2, 2001 EST (#2956 of 2996)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We may have to question a great deal, including some "unwritten rules."
rshowalter 3/20/01 8:18am
rshowalter 3/20/01 9:33am

But we shouldn't forget what we might hope for, and what we might hope for from the Bush administration, either. rshowalter 3/20/01 12:43pm

rshowalter - 07:13am May 2, 2001 EST (#2957 of 2996)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Dream worlds, beauty, and right and wrong.
rshowalter 3/26/01 8:36pm
rshowalter 3/26/01 8:46pm
Things have to happen step by step. That's surely true, if people have "lost touch with reality" - the hard intellectual work involved in getting in better touch has to happen step by step.

I can and do think Star Wars is crazy. I can think that, and still think Bush may be acting in good faith, from where he is, and moving in the right direction.

rshowalter - 07:48am May 2, 2001 EST (#2958 of 2996)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

World Wary About Bush Missile Plan by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Defense-World-Reax.html

Bush is far from having a consensus for his positions. He, and the party and intellectual tradition he's representing, may, in fact, be moving the US from a position of leadership to a more marginal, lower status, intellectually less respected role. He, his party, and the intellectual tradition he's fronting for may be acting in the strongest possible way to make other nation states think about their own interests, and the collective world interests, with the US thought of, not as a dominant leader, but as one nation among the rest, and, for many purposes, an outsider.

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