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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?

lunarchick - 05:32am May 11, 2001 EST (#3676 of 3682)
lunarchick@www.com

Attention guinea pigs:

To test clothing for nuclear foolproofness wear it and then crawl through the actual site where the nuclear bomb was detonated!

Who were the guys in charge back then ?

rshowalter - 07:57am May 11, 2001 EST (#3677 of 3682)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Here is a basic fact --- neither individuals nor nations have enough resources to check everything everybody (or anybody) else does -- so at some level, one must "trust" -- at least in the sense of "neglect to check." There's just no alternative. For example, in all marriages, the partners "trust" each other to some extent, in this sort of sense.

At the same time, neither individuals nor nations have any reason to think themselves infallible, or of universal good will, nor to expect that of others -- and so it is crazy not to check on each other sometimes -- and not to have counterforces that can be brought to bear at need.

Russia, particularly, can't forget what Hitler did, and how good a liar he was, and how completely the Germans approved of his lies, and backed him in the ways that matter. And so she can't be asked, after all that has happened, to be confident and relaxed in the face of physical forces capable of destroying the Russian nation. That's too much to ask. It is easy to go through the web sites, and statements of american politicians and show for certain that our trust of the Russians, putting it gently, is limited as well.

We need balances. And they must be balances that are, when they matter enough, agreed to, and clear, and public. So that people don't forget what they agreed to (which is so easy to do) and so people can ask that violations of agreements (intentional or not) be adjusted.

With less lying, and the vastly increased memory and ability to handle complexity that internet usages can provide, much more stable agreements can be made -- stable because they can be checked in more ways, and at more times, and by more people.

When someone says "trust me" -- most people take that, in part, to mean ---i "check me if you can -- I don't think you can --I have some power here."

No sensible nation can be asked to have deep or unconditional trust about nuclear weapons. There is too much to fear. So there have to be agreements, and openness is safer, and requests to be "accepted as a nation of good will" -- though important, can't stand alone.

We need a balance between trust and distrust, that works for the circumstances and the people involved, with objective and emotional histories as they are.

rshowalter - 08:04am May 11, 2001 EST (#3678 of 3682)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

What I said, using the word "Russia" would mostly apply, with a few easy changes, to every other nation state in the world.

Shifting technology is making lies and deceptions much harder to hide, and that is a force for stabilization and rationalization -- though it also involves dislocations in transition, and not all of those transitions can be beautiful or just in all respects.

Let me offer an example. Suppose every news conference and public statement of C-Span was put on streaming video as a matter of course, and speech processing automated equipment was applied to it all, so that there was a searchable (if a bit ragged) record of everything said in the currently powerful but ephemeral medium of public television. All that is practical now, or would be with a fairly moderate development grant. In five years it will certainly be practical.

What would happen to politics in America if this simple technical change occurred? "Big lie" tactics that are now successful, and assets to people and groups who use them, would cease to be assets.

Another thing would happen. Recountings of objective events would be constrained in more ways so that the opportunity to check for consistent accounts would be higher --- it would be easier and more sure for people to establish the truth of what actually happened, under circumstances where politicians and other social actors now assume that they can dissemble, and no one will remember.

rshowalter - 08:08am May 11, 2001 EST (#3679 of 3682)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That would make the deceptions on which the success of agressive war depends harder and harder to achieve -- - especially if we can effectively prohibit nuclear weapons.

Peace is becoming a much more practical proposition than it used to be. For the whole world, but especially for the technically advanced countries.

World prosperity is, too.

And fears of unemployment will be much less grounding in this world taking shape - for people with reasonable competence and social skills. For example, the managers (they were not physicists of scientists) representing the SAFE foundation in Congressman Weldon's recent press conference would be valuable people -- doing many jobs that need to be done, and that could be organized -- including many that need doing to coordinate the sociotechnical systems of Russia, Western Europe, and the United States.

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