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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 - 10:51am Jul 15, 2001 EST (#7048 of 7054)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

fine source of declassified documents and analysis: the National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/

U.S. POLICY IN GUATEMALA, 1966-1996 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs contains chilling documents, with summaries worth noticing, set out in MD6341-42 rshowalter 6/30/01 3:07pm

MD6343 rshowalter 6/30/01 3:19pm

Thomas Friedman's phrase

" I have no doubt that Kissinger is as cynical, mean and nasty a bureaucratic infighter and player of the game of nations as his most venomous critics have charged. At times, he can make Machiavelli sound like one of the Sisters of Mercy."

can't have been meant lightly, when one considers what Kissinger's critics have charged.

We should fix the ugly parts of US foreign policy and military function.

We should know what there is to fix -- and not have US representatives continue to act in ways that produce agony, and increase our danger.

MD5784-5787 rshowalter 6/22/01 1:05pm sets out Henry Kissinger on Trial: A Guide to the Controversy Surrounding the Diplomat from the Encyclopedia Britannica web site --February 2001

MD5870 rshowalter 6/22/01 8:41pm asks this thread's Bush administration stand in :

" gisterme , have you read the references collected in Britannica's KISSINGER ON TRIAL piece? . . .

" Really read them?

" Don't they set out unfortunate circumstances?

" Isn't it reasonable that we try to do better?

We have to.

MD6345 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?14@184.vzCsaIUQrJA^4869540@.f0ce57b/6808... MD6346 lunarchick 6/30/01 4:20pm
MD6347 lunarchick 6/30/01 4:58pm ... MD6348 rshowalter 6/30/01 5:27pm
MD6349 rshowalter 6/30/01 5:48pm ....

rshowalter - 10:56am Jul 15, 2001 EST (#7049 of 7054)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Missile Defense 30 Years Ago -- Deja Vu all over again? Edited by William Burr December 18, 2000 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB36/

MD6357 rshowalter 6/30/01 7:52pm

The technical problems with missile defense have been known for a long time -- and haven't changed.

Can "smart rocks" work, on easy enough targets, as a stunt?

Yes.

But nothing of military use could be done 30 years ago, and the basic reasons haven't changed.

rshowalter - 11:07am Jul 15, 2001 EST (#7050 of 7054)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Postings MD6857-61 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?7@184.vzCsaIUQrJA^4869540@.f0ce57b/7439 contain these points.

I've been very scared, for a long time -- and since Bush was elected, things have gone so surreally wrong that I've felt there was nothing to do but stand. Because I've felt that the treasonous low-lifes who've subverted the United States and stolen the presidency were not only corrupt -- but also incompetent enough that they could easily destroy the world.

If I were an ordinary, honest Republican - I might be the most concerned of all

In MD 6809 . I asked a question -- " What have I said that is not in the national interest? " I still think that's a good question -- and I believe I've been serving the national interest to high standards.

gisterme replied. .... Eventually - gisterme conceded a key point -- that the technical possibilities and probabilities connected to classified work can be evaluated in term of open literature knowledge in the United States. That means that stamping something "CLASSIFIED" is not a license to commit limitless fraud.

I'm prepared to go forward with much of that checking, on missile defense, and many of the basic facts, including the fact that it is easy to immunize a missile or warhead from lasar damage, are in this thread. http://www.phy.davidson.edu/jimn/Java/Coatings.htm

I've suggested that gisterme represents this administration, and could not write as extensively as gisterme does, without the knowledge and backing of the very highest levels of the Bush administration. That's my opinion. I think it is a reasonable opinion, amounting by now to an overwhelming probability -- and I think that many other people, looking at the circumstances, might form the same opinion.

This .....can be checked. I'm prepared to submit to checking on anything I've said on this thread.

The administration's missile defense initiative is a massive fraud, and I can't see how anyone in the Bush administration control group can escape knowing it.

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