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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 - 09:16pm Jun 30, 2001 EST (#6365 of 6374)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Adolf Berle's Laws of Power and related matters:
MD6274 rshowalter 6/29/01 8:14am .... MD6275 rshowalter 6/29/01 8:14am

rshowalter - 09:53pm Jun 30, 2001 EST (#6366 of 6374)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Promises to keep to gisterme in the morning:
MD6351 rshowalter 6/30/01 6:10pm

rshowalter - 10:06pm Jun 30, 2001 EST (#6367 of 6374)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

It seems to me that Soul Brother by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/opinion/29FRIE.html is distinguished work. These points seem key:

" Mr. Bush has learned something in his first few months. If he wants his two great projects on foreign policy to succeed — NATO expansion and a missile shield — he needs Russian help.

. . . .

" Mr. Bush seems to understand some things they don't — that NATO expansion doesn't matter and missile defense doesn't work. If they really were vital, the Pentagon, the public and the allies would support doing both unilaterally — at any price. But since both seem to grow more out of Republican theology than strategy, and since both seem unconnected to the immediate threats facing America, our allies and the Pentagon today, they can proceed only if the costs are limited. "

What does this say about the competence and patriotism of the administration? It seems to me that it "casts doubt" (putting the matter gently) on both.

In a world where risks are real and costs are real , it seems that the current administration is "playing games" in the worse sense.

Redemption will come if they find a way to get real and substantial reductions in the world's nuclear risk.

I'm for that. Can they do it?

If they have the courage to be honest, on just a few things that will come out anyway, I think that they can.

lunarchick - 05:04am Jul 1, 2001 EST (#6368 of 6374)
lunarchick@www.com

America boasts itself as being a democracy, the land of the free, having open media, having an open press. It pushes Putin on feedom of the press, and yet America falls on it's face with respect to Showalter asking:

" Why doesn't the military, or Lockheed Martin, or some other reputable source of engineering talent, get a real person, with a name and a face, in front of a video camera, with me or any of a number of other people who could do the job, with UMPIRES there so he couldn't lie ---- and establish, beyond any reasonable doubt at all, that these missile defense schemes aren't respectable engineering, but are a fraud instead. "

lunarchick - 05:26am Jul 1, 2001 EST (#6369 of 6374)
lunarchick@www.com

2008 games : http://www.observer.co.uk/china/0,10604,514467,00.html

But officials will not be boasting of how China publicly executed more than 1,000 people last year for a range of criminal offences; last week alone more than 60 men and women were put to death, just minutes after their sentences were passed

lunarchick - 06:47am Jul 1, 2001 EST (#6370 of 6374)
lunarchick@www.com

www.ft.com (ft only) search 'Putin'

Seems that Russia's performance is lifting.

lunarchick - 07:08am Jul 1, 2001 EST (#6371 of 6374)
lunarchick@www.com

Problems!

Small problems are simple
They're pick-up and run
Most folks can do them
Yet may not find them fun

Some problems are solvable
The patterns are known
You take them in stages
If you want - to get home

Other problems are process
If complex they be
Teams may make them simplex
Root to tips - of branched tree

!?? Showalter problems ??!
You might speak some on this
For most they're too awesome
Can't be done in a Jiff
dR

(3 following messages)

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