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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 - 10:27pm Aug 21, 2001 EST (#7977 of 7982)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The patterns in
MD7935 rshowalter 8/20/01 9:08pm . . MD7936 rshowalter 8/20/01 9:08pm

can show, beyond ANY reasonable doubt, that the missile defense program can't work, for any sane military purpose, and that we have to find our security in other ways.

I'll be working hard to prove that, and hope to do so with some help from people with the power and resources to make sufficiently persuasive proof happen.

We have other, better things to do with the money and the fine engineers whose lives are being squandered on this program. Things the world needs - that would serve the interests of the United States.

We're approaching "the end of the road" for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned against so many years ago. Some adjustments need to be made. And it can, and must, happen in public.

I'm out for tonight.

rshowalter - 10:30pm Aug 21, 2001 EST (#7978 of 7982)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For the record.

September 25, 2000 was an interesting, busy day for me on this thread -- my first day.

It ended at MD304 rshowalt 9/25/00 5:28pm

I made an offer that still stands.

The Cold War should be over.

We have better things, safer things, that we could be doing.

rshowalter - 10:43pm Aug 21, 2001 EST (#7979 of 7982)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

U.S. Sets Deadline for Settlement of ABM Argument by PATRICK E. TYLER http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/22/international/22MISS.html

"MOSCOW, Aug. 21 — A senior Bush administration official said today that the United States had given Russia an unofficial deadline of November to agree to changes in the Antiballistic Missile Treaty or face a unilateral American withdrawal from the arms control accord.

" Speaking in an interview on Russian radio that will be aired on Wednesday evening, the official, John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said after two days of talks with Russian officials that the United States plans to resolve its strategy for withdrawing from the treaty before Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, visits Mr. Bush this fall.

" It was the first time a member of the Bush administration has set a time limit for consultations that Mr. Bush pledged to undertake with American allies, and with Russia and China, before acting on his campaign pledge to develop a new national missile defense system. Such a system contravenes the 1972 treaty, which was the first United States- Soviet arms control agreement and was seen as the keystone of detente during the cold war.

" In July, a senior Pentagon official told members of Congress that an antimissile testing program would be "bumping up against" the ABM Treaty in a matter of months.

" American withdrawal from the treaty, six months after a formal notification to Moscow, would pave the way for the start of construction of a missile defense test site in Alaska. Ground-clearing for missile silos and a command center at Fort Greely, 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks, is to begin this week, a Pentagon spokesman announced today.

" Pam Bain, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said the administration intends to begin building the missile silos as early as April.

" The Pentagon has also said a number of tests are planned for early next year that might conflict with the treaty, including using ship-based radar systems to track intercontinental ballistic missiles.

" A senior Pentagon official expressed surprise tonight when told of Mr. Bolton's remarks in Moscow, saying he did not know of any decisions by the administration to give a six-month notification of withdrawal in November.

" "I've never heard anyone say that before," the official said.

" John Rhinelander, a lawyer who advised ABM negotiators in 1972 and is a leading arms control advocate, said Mr. Bolton's remarks suggested that the administration was looking for excuses to withdraw from the treaty unilaterally.

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