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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 - 12:57pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4044 of 4045)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I said: "If Hitler's German sociotechnical system had been as vulnerable in 1939 as the US sociotechnical system is right now Hitler, monster though he was, would have been deterred...."

I think that's right. Given the current vulnerability of the US economy and society to an uncountable number of attacks on its new internet nervous system -- and considering that code and physical attacks can be combined and many attacks can happen at once, I think that's right.

I know that the US isn't considering attacking China. But suppose it did. How many Americans would be inconvenienced, how much cost to Americans would be imposed, and how many would die?

Here's my judgement. Right now (and in the future things will be worse, not better) many would be inconvenienced, costs could be and would be tremendous, and many, many people would be likely to die.

In an analogous situation, facing those vulnerabilities, Hitler and his control group would have been deterred from invading other countries.

Maybe the US isn't contemplating agressive action, so the point is mute. (Lots of people don't think the point is mute.) But if it were it should think hard about the non-nuclear deterrants now in place, and likely to come into being.

You asked " "Vulnerable to what? Deterred by what?"

and that's my answer.

The point of my statement was to provide comfort to outsiders who fear the US.

You ask:

" Are you trying to re-scope your Maj. Strasser stereotype to include all Americans everywhere now? Even yourself?

NO!

But there are people around the world who have exactly the kinds of fears I'm adressing, and who DO make analogies between Americans and Nazis, and since the US spent about half a century trying to reinforce those views in Russia, it makes sense to deal with realities now.

I want the US to live up to its own ideals.

Which it often but not always does.

They are my ideals, too.

rshowalter - 01:06pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4045 of 4045)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Live and let live is a very good ideal, it seems to me, and part of the reason is mutual benevolence, which is a very important reason human beings do a lot of things.

But another good reason to avoid predatory behavior and fights is that they are quite often expensive and dangerous.

The US is in no way invulnerable. So that is another reason for being polite, and concerned for the welfare of the citizens of other nations.

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