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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?

almarst-2001 - 02:10am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5325 of 5339)

midmoon 6/15/01 9:34pm

"Now she is the most competent candidate to be a super power in about 20 years or so and this may be the most threat to the US and other nations at that time.

What matters is not the possibility of China's emergence to a super power but the fact that she is too unreliable and unbelivable to assum the right role of a janitor in the world class room of nations.

If China is going to be a military giant,Japan is also trying to be a military Titan.

The history pertaining to these two nations tells it. "

Indeed. And if we look at the same history, it was Japan, the US and the West trying to colonise, to subdue and repeatedly commiting agressions against China, not the other way around.

And what exactly the "the right role of a janitor in the world class room of nations."? And what nation by what "credentials" and why in your view "has the right" for such a "role"?

possumdag - 02:24am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5326 of 5339)
Possumdag@excite.com

Midmoon referred to Orwell's 'Animal Farm' here ...

Napoleon (boar) sets himself up as the 'Super Power' .. with little regard for the rest of the animals.

possumdag - 02:30am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5327 of 5339)
Possumdag@excite.com

Alex a point about China is their desire to subdue everyone East and South of their great wall.

Rather than encourage pluralism, allowing cultures to exist together, they stamp out the 'non-dominant' culture and try to impose the dominant one.

ONLY ONE way of thinking is allowed in dictatorial China - officially. Anyone who goes against the grain is made to comply via beatings, imprisonment or ultimately extermination. Cultures as per Tibet - the same.

It may be as China gets richer, the children get around the world, the internet comes into the home, and things move on, that, China will produce governments that are less intolerant of diversity.

almarst-2001 - 02:35am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5328 of 5339)

If the Cold War really ended and there is a mutual interest of integrating the Russia into the Europe politically and economically, What is the role of NATO? Why it should be expanded rather then abandoned aptogether?

May be gisterme has an answer?

almarst-2001 - 02:43am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5329 of 5339)

jimmyz211a 6/17/01 2:56pm

"We're the only super power left, and we shouldn't be scolded and hassled by third world weenie countries. Since we're number one, why don't we act like it."

We do. You just missed an announcement those numbers 2, 3 and the rest do not exist any more. Its safe to switch back to Football;)

almarst-2001 - 02:59am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5330 of 5339)

possumdag 6/18/01 2:30am

"a point about China is their desire to subdue everyone East and South of their great wall."

I think the situation in China is much more complex then that. There are many reasons for not exactly exemplary behavier. But whatever it is, it is NOT the kind og genocidal behavier of Europeans against each other or their colonies. Or the US behavier against native Indians or far away nations like Koreans or Vietnamese.

No one would accept the Judge or the Teacher with such a credentials as Western Neo-"Humanirtarians" and Neo-"Democrats". Not even acknowleged and applogised or rectified their ultimatly shameful and criminal VERY RECENT past.

rshowalter - 07:06am Jun 18, 2001 EST (#5331 of 5339)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Interesting times. Hopeful. Conflicted. The China example set out in WHEN LIES KILL In China, the Right to Truth Meets Life and Death By ERIK ECKHOLM http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/weekinreview/17ECKH.html is a fine one -- and there are many other good ones -- where there is a lot of "unforgivable bad" - and "unadmittable wrong" but some very good impulses too.

These situations are complex - and only by looking at the complexity can one see enough flexibility for humanly workable solutions -- which must sometimes be negotiated reframings, and negotiations about meaning, not only between individuals, but between staffed and multiply articulated organizations that exist in yet more complicated, multiply connected, ornately organized societies. Some negotiation about power and meaning is going on now.

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