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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 - 10:14am Jul 10, 2001 EST (#6839 of 6861)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I've done extensive summaries of this thread, with links in the Guardian Talk thread Psychwar, Casablanca, and Terror , starting at #151 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/160

Summaries of this thread after July 14 (#207) http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/218 that reads in part:

"This thread is the single most important TALK thread for discussions of military balances and peace, and I deeply appreciate the chance I've been given to post here. .

" Since Missile Defense 4433 rshowalter 6/6/01 1:48pm there have been 906 postings.

" The NYT forums have now reinstalled a search function, after a long time -- and it seems to be the same one the Guardian uses, with search page lengths the same as in these TALK threads.

" The NYT Missile Defense thread is being extensively used, and discussion and controversy are continuing. Main contributers are:

" almarst_2001, previously almarstel2001 who, since March 5 has acted as a "Putin stand-in" in the Missile Defense forum , and shows extensive connections to literature, and to Russian government ways of thought.

" gisterme , who since May 2nd has acted as a "Senior Bush administration advisor stand in" who shows some plausible connections to the Bush administration.

" Posters ( beckq , cookies ) who, according to the dialog, are the same poster, who I'd interpret as "stand-ins" for former President Clinton since August 2000

"Me, and Dawn Riley, who have been arguing for improved communication, and as much nuclear disarmament as possible within the imperatives of military balances, since September 25, 2000

"Counting search pages, for characters, gives some sense of the participation. Here are the number of search pages for these posters (as of today )

Putin stand-in, Almarst --- 66 search pages.

Bush Advisor stand-in, gisterme ----- 59 search pages

Clinton stand-in, beckq, or cookies2 ----- 7 search pages

Dawn Riley - - - - 115 search pages

Robert Showalter - - - - 166 search pages (saturated)

I've contributed the most words to the MD thread, and Dawn the most citations and the most connection to the news.

But the involvement of the "stand-ins" has been very extensive, too, represents an enormous work committment on thier part, and their postings are, I think, very impressive. The involvement of these "stand-ins" continues. I believe that their work has assisted in the focusing of problems where neither the US nor the Russians were clear about how to make contact with each other before.

This Missile Defense thread is an ongoing attempt to show that internet usages can be a format for negotiation and communication, between staffed organizations, capable of handling more complexity, with more clarity and more complete memory, than could happen otherwise.

I believe that is something relatively new, in need of development, and clearly needed. I feel that progress is being made, and that impasses that were intractable before may be more tractable now.

meuphys_rasbene - 10:26am Jul 10, 2001 EST (#6840 of 6861)

Missile defense is not technologically feasible at present, nor will it be for many many years to come. What disturbs me is that the Republicans, and the constituency they claim to represent, are jumping at the quick, technological, easy answer - even though scientist after reputed scientist has repeatedly claimed that it would be extremely easy to design a decoy which would fool even the most advanced technology which could be deployed in the foreseeable future. The success rate of missile defense technology in recent tests - even those which have been "dummied down" and thus DO NOT represent an actual combat situation, in which an adversary's missile could very conceivably evade even the most sophisticated interceptors available today - is no better than fair. Keeping in mind that even less powerful nuclear weapons in this day and age are hundreds of times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, can we really afford to deploy a system which could let even one missile through? Most scientific progress is made after a period of experimentation and trial and error, but we CANNOT afford to take that approach with this issue. Unless it were absolutely foolproof, such a system could lead even more rapidly to a nuclear confrontation than does our current - albeit admittedly imperfect - regime of treaties and negotiation. It is my suspicion that Bush and his administration are once again flouting common sense without looking back, their only imaginable goal to reward the high tech and defense industries so generous to his campaign...but at what cost? If we only had a responsible, intelligent adult as president of the United States...

almarst-2001 - 10:43am Jul 10, 2001 EST (#6841 of 6861)

New War Crimes Indictments in The Hague Reflect Politics - http://www.stratfor.com/

Slobodan Milosevic will likely argue to the tribunal that its actions are motivated by politics, not justice.

rshowalter - 10:47am Jul 10, 2001 EST (#6842 of 6861)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

He is certainly partly right.

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