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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 - 03:12pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4156 of 4157)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

4116: rshowalter 5/21/01 2:12pm contained this:

"We have limits in discourse techniques - so that things that need to get to closure, haven't. Now odds are better that they can.

( . . . . -- and that tools were coming into shape for doing it. Including discourse tools, some being focused in forums like this one.)

4117: gisterme 5/21/01 3:32pm responded in a perceptive way, involving key questions Dawn had about lists of indicators for war and peace, and making a key point about feedback.

I commented about the new possibilties of communication in rshowalter 5/21/01 4:20pm making a key point, but missing another. I said that

"Better communication gives people at a distance, and with more complicated interactions, a chance to resolve their problems in the same sort of ways as people close together, and in simpler interactions, have always solved THEIR problems. "

But I didn't say that, with the new internet usages, memory is vastly greater than before, and more complexity can be handled, so problems that used to be intractable are not less so.

I used a phrase that carrried connotations I did not mean --- I should have said that, in negotiations,

" each side has to take take care of its own interests, and know them especially well, but must also understand enough about other people's interests so that good, stable cooperation can result."

rshowalter - 03:13pm May 22, 2001 EST (#4157 of 4157)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

There are some important, hopeful issues here -- and I'm wanting to emphasize them again.

gisterme 5/21/01 6:27pm asked if I think murder is OK -- and alluded again to my comment that the US military, in other eyes, too often looks too much like Major Strasser, the Nazi villian in Casablanca . --- I think death is unfortunate, and prefer aimed fire to random murder. I don't think the distinction between "murder" and "death by reason of military action" is a particularly interesting distinction, for a lot of purposes. I bet gisterme knew those things.

4121: rshowalter 5/21/01 8:54pm says these things among others.

We need to get things clear - and we need to fashion deals that make sense and are correct from the viewpoint of all concerned. That includes the interests of Russia as well as the United States. And the interests of many other countries, too.

We need solutions that fit cases, and are proportionate - from a lot of points of view. We need solutions in the real, complex circumstances, where fear levels and distrust levels are justifiably high - though there are substantial areas of limited but real trust and good will, too.

"I'm going to take time .............. In hope of offering steps toward solutions that work.

Here is 4123: rshowalter 5/21/01 9:01pm , which I think is essential:

. . . Russia can't be asked to agree to nuclear safety for the world, at the cost of sacrificing HER interests, from HER point of view. Neither can other nations.

The deal has to work for everybody. On their terms. With circumstances, including history and human feelings, as they are, and not as we might wish them to be.

This doesn't look easy to me, but it does look possible. For a stable solution to be possible, feelings between people can be very different, but key facts have to be the same for all concerned.

gisterme , I hope you don't think I'm being too windy -- I'm compiling a list of nuts and bolts suggestions - you've heard them before, but I think they're worth considering. Not highflown, but maybe doable.

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