New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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 - 08:24pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5031 of 5069)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Fascinating piece! It would be good for cultures and enterprises to think of "branding themselves" and ask

"how can we be beautiful - in our own eyes, and in the eyes of other people?"

and

"if something about us looks ugly, in our own eyes, or in the eyes of other people -- how do we fix it?

Brands sell when, somehow, they are associated with beauty. Not ugliness.

So Russia, for example, has plenty of work to do. And the United States has some work, too.

rshowalter - 08:28pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5032 of 5069)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

gisterme 6/13/01 8:19pm

that's not how I'd read the record, gisterme -- and not how a large number of experts at the United Nations read the record.

Could you, perhaps, explain to me how the US and others are "the same in this respect?"

That's the opposite of what I think now -- but I'm willing to listen. Perhaps almarst is, as well.

gisterme - 08:50pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5033 of 5069)

rshowalter wrote: "...We need to get some things to closure. From time to time, there will have to be umpiring -- George Johnson (aka Dirac) illustrates the discourse techniques that can keep anything from closure -- and those techniques need to be contained. It takes some staffing. Not much, but some..."

Censorship? Another facist proposal?

Have you seen diarc making any personal insults due to an apparent failure to grasp facts, Robert, the way that alty53 has been doing? Alty simply claims that what he/she doesn't want to hear is just a conspiracy, but then substitutes personal insults for evidence to back the claim. Sound familiar, Robert? That's exactly what I was talking about last time you got under my skin.

I'm sure that YOU would naturally expect to be the censor. So would you censor alty53 just because he/she seems unable to do anything but bluster? Or would you censor dirac because he's not saying what you want to hear?

Now you're the one that's coming on like Maj. Strasser (again). That's not intended to be an insult, Robert. It's just that that shoe seems to fit you better than any other Americans I know.

rshowalter - 08:57pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5034 of 5069)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Nice repost, but I do notice that you made an assertion, I contradicted it with some specificity -- and now we're playing ad homenim.

Let me think a little while. There are many too many times when Americans, especially military americans, look too much like Major Strasser.

For specific reasons. Let me get the reasons. . . . You've seen the argument before, and you went out of your way to deflect it, but not to adress it. . . .

lunarchick - 09:15pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5035 of 5069)
lunarchick@www.com

You cannot rewrite history, but you will have 30 minutes to make any changes or fixes

gisterme - 09:15pm Jun 13, 2001 EST (#5036 of 5069)

rshowalter wrote: "...that's not how I'd read the record, gisterme -- and not how a large number of experts at the United Nations read the record.

Could you, perhaps, explain to me how the US and others are "the same in this respect?"..."

You know, Robert, you're beginning to convince me that perhaps it didn't matter to you that we were talking about apples and oranges in our earler exchange on this topic. You seem to assume that possesion of nukes equates to a first strike policy. I told you what "first strike" means to me and you didn't dispute that definition back then. But now you want to define "first strike" as something else. Why now?

I'll say for the third time (unless I've forgotten some) that if the US or anybody else had ever had a first strike policy, THEY WOULD HAVE STRUCK.

As dirac pointed out, the US could have done that with far more impunity during the four years that it had a nuclear monopoly than it could today with or without a BMD. But it didn't. That makes me proud to be an American too.

(33 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense