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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 - 11:52am Jun 10, 2001 EST (#4686 of 4695)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"Knowing how skeptical Europeans (and the Senate's majority Democrats) are, the administration has been drafting incentives for Russian cooperation on missile defense that really could become markers toward a broader relationship with Russia. They don't only focus on managing nuclear arms — perhaps with some aspects of a missile defense built and operated with Russia — but include language on halting proliferation, a grave Russian concern along its southern periphery; on resolving bloody regional disputes that dot Russia's outskirts; and on assuring a steady regimen of economic assistance. Some of the ideas are old. A few are fresh. Nobody expects them to be enough for Russia to dismantle the ABM Treaty, but administration officials say they are just an initial offering.

"What begins Saturday, then, is a process of two presidents groping for new terms to define trust — and if not trust, well, at least understanding, and if not understanding at least an agreed vocabulary for clarifying what both sides want and need.

"THE language itself is interesting. The administration is consciously stepping back from the tone unilateralism it was using earlier this year. An attempt has begun at conversation with Russia — and Europe — about the trust that can be placed in America's management of the alliance's security relationship with Russia.

"At home, the tension between those who cite the stability brought by arms control treaties and those who challenge their usefulness was on display last week as the Senate Armed Services Committee reviewed some of President Bush's appointments to the Department of Defense.

"Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, argued that killing the ABM Treaty without Russian assent could prompt Russia to keep a large arsenal of multiple- warhead missiles. "Would that fact," he asked, "be worthy of consideration by us relative to the question of whether we'd be more or less secure?" He also suggested that China might further expand its nuclear forces. And he challenged Douglas J. Feith, nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy, over writings in which he had argued that the ABM Treaty ceased to exist with the death of the Soviet Union, and that described the Chemical Weapons Convention as "junk arms control."

"Mr. Feith responded: "If we make agreements that we can't enforce and that we have good reason to believe are going to be violated and are going to be open to countries that enter them cynically and in bad faith, the overall consequence of that over time is to cheapen the currency that we should really be preserving the value of."

"Whatever logic and accuracy are bundled into the Bush arguments, many in Europe and Russia hear the reprise of unilateralism. They fear a world in which the United States, or any nation, can brag of slashing its warheads because the balance of terror is dead — and, therefore, so are the treaties that regulated it. That, they say, is also a world in which that same nation can rebuild its arsenal to any level, anytime it wants.

"In any event, another question will also be carried into Saturday's meeting and beyond: whether the Bush and Putin administrations are capable of reaching a new understanding on security — or whether the leaders will talk past each other over the din of shorter-term political considerations.

"Is there an incentive for Russia to sign off on anything anytime soon? Not unless America can forge allied consensus on missile defense. Does Mr. Putin risk anything by withholding his answer for too long? Certainly, since missile defense advocates would describe Russian intransigence as the final reason to move ahead, and quickly."

Mr. Putin, Meet Mr. Bush: Who Needs Treaties? by THOM SHANKER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/weekinreview/10SHAN.html

rshowalter - 12:31pm Jun 10, 2001 EST (#4687 of 4695)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Related pieces from the WEEK IN REVIEW

New Math: Going Along, but Not Getting Along by ROBIN TONER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/weekinreview/10TONE.html

" NOW is the time for healing, for working together, for — above all — bipartisan cooperation. It is the time for peacemaking dinners at the White House, for changing the tone in Washington (again) for graceful losing and humble winning. . . . .

" That, at least, was the message from Congress and the White House last week, as Democrats took control of the Senate and President Bush tried amiably to adjust. It is, . . . . obviously, the prerequisite for getting much done in a narrowly divided government. But the political realities of Washington will be pushing in the opposite direction — away from compromise, toward the rough clash of two ideologically polarized parties. As Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, puts it, "This is about real stuff. This isn't about personalities. This isn't some high school dance."

Reframings are needed. But I'd point out that polarization has an essential use if the points each side makes become clear and then these points can be checked for correspondence to facts , and judged for fit to what people can check, and reasonably believe.

Without this clarity, reframings aren't possible, and Toner describes characteristic problems:

" . . . a public divided over what "getting things done" even means

To get good solutions, things need to be clearer than that.

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When that sort of clarification happens for human beings, it happens by thinking and discourse.

This thread is an attempt at something new -- a format for workable, traceable, checkable communication and negotiation between staffed organizations, with openness, and more effective memory and accomodation of complexity that was possible before. MD4624 rshowalter 6/8/01 3:42pm

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