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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 - 02:51pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3232 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We all understand that the development of nuclear weapons changed history.

. Nuclear weapons radically and permanently changed "the worst that could happen" in war. -- That nightmare will, at some levels, remain with us, no matter how well our technical and political controls work. In this sense, the world was permanently changed in 1945, and the fifteen years thereafter.

But nuclear weapons did not STOP history.

Another change has come upon us, also historical. It will also be irreversible, permanent so long as civilization continues.

. The internet and related electonic changes, and the changes that will follow from them, have radically and permanently increased the speed of information flow, permanently increased the amount of information available, permanently increased the speed and power with which the information can be used, and permanently, radically reduced the cost of both information and logical inference.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

The connections between information (and deception) and war, that have existed since time immemorial, are now permanently altered.

THE ALTERATION IS IN THE DIRECTION OF STABILITY AND SAFETY - OR CAN BE MADE TO BE .

BUT THIS IS A BIG NEW CHANGE, THAT HAS TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I believe that the world is going to be considerably safer and more stable soon.

But militarily, it is also going to be different.

Military forces will still have plenty to do.

rshowalter - 02:55pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3233 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

applez0 5/4/01 2:48pm you're absolutely right. The internet, and the current cheapness of storage, offer advantages here, too. If, routinely, people could comment about stories, on the internet, in a public way -- there would be mechanisms of self correction in journalism that don't work today.

I used to spend a lot of time on "how Hitler did it" with respect to journalism --- and I think every lesson there was to learn has been well learned, and institutionalized, by the military-industrial complex.

But with the internet, and cheap memory, and search tools -- all the corruption mechanisms are now VERY vulnerable. No longer workable, with just a relatively few changes.

rshowalter - 02:58pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3234 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

These same changes make nuclear inspection - in the ways that actually matter, much more possible too. Lies are dangerous, and nowhere more dangerous than in nuclear matters. Finding lies, and substituting truth for the lies, will never be easy -- but it is getting more and more possible, when people are willing to do the work.

Plus the penalties of making nukes can be substantial , and should be. So certainty of being caught ought not be necessary to deter nuclear blackmail -- if it doesn't pay anyway, and it is likely to be caught, and severely punished, it will not occur.

You don't have to assume all people are sweet to believe that.

applez0 - 03:05pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3235 of 3258)

On the point of nuclear inspections, I think the US should invite third-country UN inspectors to check out its stockpile. It may seem a mere formality, but it would add enormous moral force to the US continued position on UN inspectors to Iraq (and others, for that matter).

It would also set up a good pattern of behavior: examining and cleaning one's own house while insisting others do the same.

rshowalter - 03:08pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3236 of 3258)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

On nukes, nobody should trust anybody . That fiction is unstable.

Nukes are too important for that.

We have to face the fact that distrust goes with nukes, and accomodate that.

Which means a lot of checking.

possumdag - 03:08pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3237 of 3258)
Possumdag@excite.com

On cleanups: Loas needs to be cleaned up so that tribal village people can return to functionallity. The carpet bombing of Loas - mines and bombs are tangible not dust - yet haven't been allocated the budget required to clean them away. Clearing mines is a yard by yard sweep. Rain delivering the new into formerly cleaned areas with mud flows.

If cleaning up bombs shows a lack of USA will power .. the dirt from their war ... why so.

Is it that the 'profits' from producing the agents of destruction had flown into the coffers of selected companies, organisations and individuals .. and interest in the fuller life cycle of the mines and bombs ceased ?

If mines and bombs that have tangibility are 'too hard' to clean up, how much more so the fallout from any missile that will contaminate vast areas.

Obviously the missiles are 'unusable' yet while they are there the chance that they will fire is real!

Why doesn't Loas bill the USA for the clean-up? Why doesn't the USA do the decent thing and help to put the starving hill peoples of Loas back on track ? The only major revenue for Loas is via HydroPower sales to Thailand. It's a long time since 1975 - over a quarter of a century! Anyone got the figures for prosthetics for Loas?

applez0 - 03:09pm May 4, 2001 EST (#3238 of 3258)

No offence Possumdag, I think in your haste of typing, you've changed 'Laos' into the Voodoo spirit "Loa." :)

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