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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 - 01:33pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6290 of 6294)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It seems to me that almarst , our stand in, and the Russians themselves, are going to have to find a workable way to admit that these are partly interdependent but largely decoupled questions, for a solution to be possible. If the request is for the US to have a much smaller force, in the immediate future -- that is Russia asking the US for the impossible.

And the US government must consider these questions as well, it seems to me.

. . .

After World War II demobilization happened quickly, but pretty naturally, too -- because people had more attractive alternatives outside the military. For large reductions in American forces to happen now, something like that has to happen again.

gisterme - 01:52pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6291 of 6294)

rshowalter wrote: "...And the Cold War ... hasn't ended yet..."

Can't agree with your statement that the Cold War isn't over, Robert. It's true that we're still dealing with the reverberations of that idiologial/economic cataclysm but they're just reverberations. The more time that goes by, the weaker they will get. Once the root causes or "forces of excitation" have been removed; all that reverberations can do is decay.

As the Russian and other ex-Soviet economies gather way the living standards in those places should improve to levels similar to the rest of Europe and the US. It seems much easier to look toward a bright future from within a robust, bustling economy than from within a flaccid one. Time, plentiful natural resources, good management and hard work should produce robust economies in those places.

The occasional glace at the rear-view mirror is an important part of driving; but without mostly looking at the road ahead driving would be suicidal. Said differently, removing the rear-view mirrors might make driving less safe; but painting-over the windshield would make driving forward impossible. Point is, that the need to look ahead is far more important than the need to look back if one wants to move ahead. I suppose you'd would want to look in the rear-view all the time only if you want to go back to where you've come from.

The Cold War is over. I, for one, don't want to go back...'don't miss it a bit.

rshowalter - 02:22pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6292 of 6294)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

You're right. We want to go forward.

And we want RUSSIA to go forward, too.

That means Russia can't be paralyzed by lies (many of its own making) that keep it from correcting mistakes, as it now, to some degree, still is. Though Putin is making some of those things better.

And Russia can't be paralyzed by fear. Which, to a significant degree, it is. Sometimes reasonable fear, but other times, I think, not so reasonable.

Neither can we be paralyzed by lies, and fears.

I think, gisterme, that we might agree that the best measure of the amount of work we have to do cleaning up the past -- is how that work is justified by the hopes it makes possible for the future.

I don't think the amount of work needed to get the future squared away is insurmountable, or even so difficult -- but I do feel it has to be done.

In ways that work for America, and for Russia, and for other countries, too.

rshowalter - 02:24pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6293 of 6294)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

We don't have to "make a big thing" of the past, so much -- necessarily -- but we need to know the past, to make decisions that work for the future.

Because, for information, the past is often all we have to go on.

rshowalter - 02:28pm Jun 29, 2001 EST (#6294 of 6294)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Once, when the Cold War was at its ugliest --- there was an interesting piece of "displacement behavior" -- that might be worth thinking about -- John F. Kennedy's "race to the moon."

Not that we need another race -- but I do think that space is an area where US - Russian competition has had some positive aspects -- which continue.

And I also think that Kennedy was partly making his decision to give his military-industrial complex something more constructive, and less dangerous, than they might otherwise do.

And, in some significant ways, it worked.

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