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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?

gisterme - 07:26pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4064 of 4083)

applez wrote: "...If the free trade is so beneficial for all and the only goal of US involvement, why do you need all this military and other means of pressure to convince other nations to act in what whould be in their clear interests?..."

We don't need it for that purpose, and I didn't say free trade was the ONLY goal. But the US seldom seems to do military things that don't have underlying market, trade or economic issues at stake or as an underlying cause. Even the cold war had the contention between Soviet style centralized economy vs. the free market economy as a fundamental component of its argument.

Barbary pirates/Tripoli? They were detaining US merchant ships in Mediterranean waters. Result? Resurrected the disbanded US Navy forever.

War with Japan? In the '30s Japan was preventing an awakening China from opening its huge market potential to the rest of the world. A definiate economic issue that lead to war. The Chinese market is not yet completely open to this day because of it.

Hitler? His rise was made possible by the ridiculous economic and industrial restrictions and penalties placed on Germany by the treaty of Versailles. A lesson the US did not forget at the end of WWII.

Viet Nam? Cold war battle. US was trying to make the USSR's economy unviable enough so that they could no longer subsidize their European empire. A tragedy for Viet Nam, a bloody miserable thing for all soldiers involved and a tactical defeat for the US. In spite of that it was a strategic cold war victory for the US because the US economy had been much better able to withstand the outlays for that war than the Soviet. Result? US economy strained, Soviet economy nearly gutted. A case of an economic attrition strategy in war. The Soviets finished the job themselves when they invaded Afghanistan.

Those are some examples of the kinds of things I meant by economic or free market issues as a cause of military action.

I find it quite cynical to declare that there can be a fair market competition between nations with such an economical disparity and capital (concentrated in litarally just a fiew hands)dependency.

Doesn't that pretty much describe the relative situations of Britain and the new-born United States at the end of the American revolution? By winning its independence the US was able to build its wealth by being a player in the free market and ultimately pass Britain as an economic power. The reason many small countries have such a hard time today is because their rulers steal all the capital their economies should have to work with. Brings to mind the Congo discussion possumdag brought up earler. It's not a problem with the market, it's a problem with little leaders who want to live like emperors. They're the ones who are raping their countries.

And even more cynical would be assumption that by bombing and destroying the nation, unwilling to participate in a "free market", the remainding rouines would suit it better.

I'd have to agree with you about that assumption, applez, if anybody made it. I'm glad I didn't. North Korea is a country that doesn't want to participate in a free market. Nobody's bombing them...their "leader" is the cause of their problems.

Please help me to sort it out, if you can.

Hope that helps, applez. :-)

gisterme - 07:28pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4065 of 4083)

Appology for (#4064) error...

That post was in response to one written by almarst not applez. Sorry almarst. No offense meant applez.

rshowalter - 07:48pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4066 of 4083)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme , I wonder how many people outside the US can consider the strategy you describe as morally justified, and I wonder how many US soldiers knowingly fight on that basis.

You seemed to object when I drew an analogy between US policy and Nazi German policy. Why?

gisterme - 07:54pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4067 of 4083)

almarst wrote: "...On OPEC.

You should know that the OPEC holds just the beginning of the oil pipe line...

That's right, almarst but its beside the point. OPEC has the power to greatly influence world oil prices because they are working within the rules of the market to do so. You can bet all those other folks get their chunk of the kill too; but still within the same set of rules. OPEC is a great example of small nations competing in the world economy. Post war Japan and Germany are two others. Both of them were bombed to rubble with destroyed industrial bases and wrecked economies. Neither had huge domestic resources at hand, especially Japan.

Right now, Russia is like a kid who's thrown himself into the deep end of the swimming pool for the first time. It's now sink or swim. It will swim. Russia has too much going for it to do otherwise. Russia has a good industrial base and lots of natural resources. Russia has great human resources. Everything the US had when it broke free from Britain. Russia will do fine. It will just take some time, probably some trial and error experiences, some innovation and some hard work. It has a huge legacy of economic isolation to overcome.

gisterme - 08:01pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4068 of 4083)

rshowalter wrote: "...gisterme , I wonder how many people outside the US can consider the strategy you describe as morally justified, and I wonder how many US soldiers knowingly fight on that basis.

You seemed to object when I drew an analogy between US policy and Nazi German policy. Why?..."

That strategy can't be morally justified by any sort of peace-time standards. I believe the US really did want to see a democracy established in South Viet Nam and sincerely expected to win militarily at the beginning. In almost every one of those cases I listed in the earlier post the economic purpose is only one of two or more birds intended to be hit by a single stone.

rshowalter - 08:04pm May 17, 2001 EST (#4069 of 4083)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

That isn't what you said before.

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