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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 - 03:41pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5119 of 5124)

On the satellite photos of "new burials" -- that was fiction, wasn't it -- if a mistake -- how was the mistake made?

It wasn't fiction, Robert. There were plenty of "new burials" found. Just not quite as many as thought. No telling how many have not been found yet.

"...Could you, as a technical matter, explain things to the Russians so that THEY might believe that?..."

I'm certain that the Russians already know a good bit more about that than you or I, Robert. They're not stupid. They don't need gisterme to tell them what the truth is. Hindsight has a tendency to be 20-20 (at least for honest folks).

rshowalter - 03:50pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5120 of 5124)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

"Just not quite as many" . . . . it was a factor of ten error - or thereabouts -- I haven't gone back and checked -- but isn't that right?

rshowalter - 03:51pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5121 of 5124)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The nuclear mess we're now in could be sorted out, and military patterns that are against the interest of almost everyone in the world, including most citizens of the United States, if we could send in clear much more often.

An expository poem of mine, at rshowalter "Science News Poetry" 2/14/01 7:18am ends as follows:

.... In clear: Lying is more dangerous than people think, and soaks up more attention than people know. We can do less of it. We can send in clear - the message, almost always, will be peaceful. And complex cooperation, now so often terminated with deceptive sequences, could happen more often.

rshowalter - 03:53pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5122 of 5124)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I think -- and there's a lot of discourse showing that our "stand in" almarst thinks -- that a major problem with peace now -- really the biggest single problem -- if almarst's feelings and Russian feelings are at all close -- is correcting a "culture of lying" -- and I'm speaking of press usages here -- that make the public supervision of the "free press" a lot less useful than the founding fathers expected.

Russia should be a lot less hypocritical, as far as press matters go. So should China. But so should we.

rshowalter - 03:55pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5123 of 5124)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

If we could get that sorted out, so things were harder to hide, easier to check -- much else would be possible.

rshowalter - 03:58pm Jun 14, 2001 EST (#5124 of 5124)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

One "big secret" that everybody knows -- is essental for solution. Everybody, from time to time, one way or another, tells lies, or decieves.

To dismiss each other by calling each other "liars" is childish -- because everybody's guilty of the charge.

The question is - what can we be trusted about, under what circumstances -- and how can things be checked, so peace and complex cooperation are possible?

We all live with each other, and have to live with each other, along a negotiated continuum of trust and distrust.

That won't change.

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