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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 - 06:06am May 22, 2001 EST (#4138 of 4142)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It is a saving grace that America is now so very vulnerable. All concerned would be safer if this were more widely understood.

rshowalter - 07:15am May 22, 2001 EST (#4139 of 4142)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I don't think we are at an impasse here. I think we are getting closer to a decisive clarification.

Almarst , and many others need to be able to understand more than they do about the Bush administration's position -- about the right wing Republican philosophy that is represents, and about a key assumption - a very reasonable assumption in some ways, that lies behind much of it.

At the same time that I say that, I also think that, no matter how admirable some intentions may be, and how reasonable some assumptions may be, the Bush administration is now trying to do the impossible, and doing so on the basis of a key assumption that, though supported by much evidence, is wrong.

The Bush administration -- surely the part of it it from which Rumsfeld, Wolfovitz, and Jesse Helmes come - believes that international cooperation can do very little -- that on things that are important enough, unilateralism is (subject to minor and grudging exceptions) the only hope. Talks are at a discount.

So, the logic goes, if America is to have peace, and the world is to be more peaceful, that has to be accomplished with missiles, since missiles are all we have.

If you look at the history of international negotiation, and talks, the idea of giving up on talking has some appeal. There have been many, many failures -- many gross disproportions between extensive and passionate effort expended and minor or negligible value achieved. That's not the whole story. But it is the story the right wing of the Republican power, now unapologetically in the saddle, sees, thinks of, and speaks of.

The assumption that talk can't work -- that international cooperation can't work -- that unilateralism is basically the only hope for effective action - is central to much of the logic of the Bush administration's actions.

rshowalter - 07:15am May 22, 2001 EST (#4140 of 4142)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Make that assumption, as Bush administration people commonly do - and you can understand how Bush people feel that they are doing the best they possibly can, and being as ethical and direct as they can possibly be, in the world as it is (according to them.)

rshowalter - 07:17am May 22, 2001 EST (#4141 of 4142)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You can understand their position, without thinking they are right.

You can understand their position, without thinking that they have any chance at all of getting good outcomes proceeding as they are proceeding.

You can understand their position. You can believe that much of what they say is sincerely believed and heartfelt, And yet you can still think that the results they will get will be horrific, inhuman, and evil.

That's where I am now.

You can understand their position especially well if you study closely how ineffective international talk and cooperation has often been. If the effectiveness of talk and international cooperation in the future is no better than it is in the past -- then the world may be, speaking figuratively of course, headed straight to h*ll.

We better find more effective ways to get talk to closure. We better find more effective and reasonable ways to cooperate internationally. I think we can. I think the internet, and some of the procedures being evolved on threads like this one, are part of that.

We ought to take the time (since we have no choice) and expend the resources (which are comparitively tiny) to get our communication and procedures so that they can bear the weight of responsibility they need to if the world is to go on, and go on decently, and with the prosperity that ought to be expected, given all the technical capacities people now have.

There's no reason why, for a while, we can't work hard on getting the "talk" end of things sorted out, and at the same time, work to sort out military issues, capacities, and balances.

Anti-missile defenses are going to be a long time coming if they ever work at all. (I don't think they can -- and think they are a waste of scarce resources - but at the most optimistic estimate from MD advocates --they are a long way off.)

rshowalter - 07:18am May 22, 2001 EST (#4142 of 4142)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

almarst quoted gisterme , and then said this:

gisterme: "Conditions really are different."

...... almarst: "They are. But not different enough for my expectations."

But some progress is being made. And maybe, with more work, things can be different enough for a more satisfactory world.

Without anybody being asked to do anything that they can't do.

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